Pedro Sánchez presents Digital Spain 2025 Agenda to mobilise public and private investment of 70 billion euros in 2020-2022

Moncloa Palace, Madrid

More than 15 ministerial departments and public authorities, as well as over 25 economic, business and social stakeholders, were involved in drawing up this digital agenda.

Digital Spain 2025 provides for a series of structural reforms in the period 2020-2022 that will mobilise a significant volume of public and private investment amounting to approximately 70 billion euros.

Public investment in the period 2020-2022 will amount to around 20 billion euros, of which approximately 15 billion euros will come from the various EU programmes and new financing instruments under the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan, which defines digitalisation as one of the main priorities for mobilising these resources.

This will be joined by planned investment from the private sector of some 50 billion euros under a moderate scenario for the roll-out of these measures.

The objectives of Digital Spain 2025 will focus on promoting the digital transformation of Spain as one of the essential levers for relaunching economic growth, reducing inequality, increasing productivity and harnessing all the opportunities offered by new technologies, while respecting constitutional and European values and protecting the rights of individuals and groups.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, said that "this is no ordinary plan, it is one of the strategic pillars on which the economic recovery of Spain should be based: job creation, increased productivity and conquering overseas markets".

Pool Moncloa/Fernando CalvoSpeaking by video-conference, the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, described the agenda as "ambitious and innovative", pointing out that "it brings forward the necessary structural reforms and investments looking to the future, and ensures the continuity of traditional policies for rolling out new infrastructures, increasing connectivity and making our companies - especially SMEs - more digital".

The presentation event at Moncloa Palace was attended by: Pedro Sánchez, President of the Government of Spain; Nadia Calviño, Third Vice-President of the Government and Minister for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation; Isabel Celaá, Minister for Education and Vocational Training; Reyes Maroto, Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism; Pedro Duque, Minister for Science and Innovation; Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Market; Pilar López, Managing Director of Microsoft Spain; José Luis Bonet, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Spain; María Ferreras, Deputy Chairwoman for Europe, the Middle East and Africa of Netflix; and José María Álvarez-Pallete, Chairman of Telefónica, among other important individuals from the sector, as well as business and trade unions.

Strategic priorities

The agenda consists of nearly 50 measures based on ten strategic priorities:

1. Digital connectivity. Guaranteeing suitable digital connectivity for the entire population in order to foster the eradication of the digital gap between different rural and urban areas aimed at ensuring that the entire population has access to 100 Mbps coverage by 2025.
2. Continuing to lead the roll-out of 5G technology in Europe and incentivising its contribution to an increase in economic productivity, social progress and regional structure. The goal is for the entire radioelectric spectrum to be ready for 5G by 2025.
3. Strengthening digital skills in employees and the population in general. A particular emphasis will be placed on labour market needs and closing the digital gap in education. The goal is for 80% of people to have basic digital skills by 2025 and for half of them to be women.
4. Strengthening Spanish cyber-security capabilities. It seeks to provide 20,000 specialists in cyber-security, artificial intelligence and data by 2025 through the business activity represented by the National Cyber-Security Institute (Spanish acronym: INCIBE), among other things.
5. Promoting the digitalisation of public administration services, especially in such key areas as employment, justice and social policies, by updating technology infrastructures. By 2025, 50% of all public services will be available via a mobile app, and relations between the public and companies or public authorities will be simplified and personalised.
6. Accelerating the digitalisation of companies, with a particular focus on micro-SMEs and start-ups. The goal is for at least 25% of SME business volume to come from e-commerce by 2025.
7. Accelerating digitalisation of the productive model through digital transformation driver projects in strategic economic sectors, such as agri-food, mobility, health, tourism, trade and energy, among others. These projects seek to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% by 2025 due to economic digitalisation effects.
8. Improving the attractiveness of Spain as a European audio-visual platform for generating business and jobs, with the target of increasing audio-visual production in Spain by 30% by 2025.
9. Transitioning to a data economy, guaranteeing safety and privacy and harnessing the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence in order for at least 25% of companies to use artificial intelligence and big data within five years.
10. Guaranteeing rights in the new digital environment, especially labour rights, consumer rights and the rights of citizens and companies. The goal for this priority is to draw up a digital rights charter.

Pool Moncloa/Fernando CalvoThis agenda will foster the country's digital transformation by guaranteeing digital connectivity, the roll-out of 5G, increased cyber-security capabilities, the digitalisation of public administration services and companies, especially SMEs, promoting Spain as an audio-visual production hub, developing the data economy and artificial intelligence, and guaranteeing digital rights for citizens. It also provides for the development of driver projects to digitalise the productive model in strategic sectors.

Furthermore, Digital Spain 2025 seeks to contribute towards closing the various digital gaps that have widened in recent years, whether that be for socio-economic, gender, generational, territorial or environmental reasons, and that have been highlighted during the pandemic. This mission is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

Advisory and Oversight Committee

The Government of Spain will create a public-private Digital Transformation Advisory Committee to facilitate dialogue with and involvement by the various economic and social stakeholders for the digital transformation of Spain.

The National Telecommunications and Information Society Observatory (Spanish acronym: ONTSI) will contribute by providing public information on the digital transformation and supporting the production of reports for assessing and updating the actions developed within the framework of this agenda.

A specific Digital Spain 2025 website will also be set up, containing up-to-date information on measures and indicators, and an Annual Oversight Report will be drawn up and presented to the Digital Transformation Advisory Committee.

Non official translation