The Block: EU blockchain infrastructure plan proceeds as parliament passes digital policy

The European Parliament passed a vote on the Digital Decade policy program, which will help businesses and public services digitalize their work and promises support for a “pan-European blockchain-based infrastructure."

The plenary meeting vote passed by 529 to 22 on Thursday, with 25 abstentions.

The policy file sets ambitions for the European Union to achieve digitization goals for 2030. It outlines large-scale, so-called “multi-country projects” to achieve the targets covering topics such as building common data infrastructure, beefing up on high-performance computing, rolling out 5G internet corridors and investing in blockchain and web3 solutions.

The European Blockchain Service Infrastructure is a cross-border initiative involving all EU member states together with Norway and Liechtenstein, as well as Ukraine as an observer. The EBSI “is already subject to a cooperation between the European Commission and the European Blockchain Partnership,” an EU Commission spokesperson told The Block in an email.

The favorable vote on the Digital Decade file could mean increased support for the EBSI in the coming years.

The European Blockchain Partnership and the ESBI were set up by the European Commission in 2018, with an overlapping objective of developing and delivering blockchain-based public services across the EU.

“The EBSI aims to support cross border public services leveraging the technology in an eco-friendly way,” an EU Commission spokesperson added. “It uses blockchain in a permissioned way with an EU governance provided by the EBP.”

Multi-country projects will be able to pool investments from the EU’s existing funding resources, like the €724 billion ($753 billion) pot of loans and grants of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. EU member states and private entities will also be able to support or invest in projects.

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