Pedro Sánchez is committed to a digital transformation that reaffirms Europe's strategic autonomy and Spain's industrial capacities

Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Madrid

"We also believe that the digital transformation must reaffirm something that we have been hearing and is increasingly present in the public conversation, certainly in politics, and that is the strategic autonomy of Europe and the strengthening of Spain's industrial capacities," Sánchez said.

The Chief Executive pointed out that two years after the approval of España Digital, our country must adapt the roadmap to the 2026 horizon, with an ambitious reformist agenda that includes areas ranging from education to employment to energy. To this end, the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan allocates 28% of investments to the digital transition of the economy.

The President of the Government highlighted the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) for semiconductors, the most ambitious of the eleven announced, with a mobilised public investment of 11 billion euros, which will enable investment in a key element in sectors such as the automotive, telecommunications and consumer electronics industries.

Continuous training

The event was also attended by the First Vice-President of the Government of Spain and Minister for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño; the Minister for Science and Innovation, Diana Morant; and the Minister for Universities, Joan Subirats. The Chief Executive has highlighted the new law on Universities, which is being processed in the Spanish Parliament, in addition to the laws on Education and Vocational Training, a field in which places have been increased by almost 25%, with a further 80,000 planned to be added next academic year to the 125,000 places already created. The government has also earmarked more than 2.9 billion euros for training workers and the unemployed in new technologies linked to the green and digital transition.

The government's goal is for the territorial digital divide to disappear by 2026, so that by 2021 it has achieved broadband deployment to more than 4,500 towns and 1.2 million homes and businesses. This transformation also involves SMEs: the government has approved the Digital Kit programme, aimed exclusively at small and medium-sized enterprises, which in its first call for applications has already received 65,000 applications and granted 18,000 digital vouchers.

"To be a citizen in the 21st century is to be a digital citizen, and that is why we have always believed that any digital transformation must be based on democratic values," he said. Spain was the first country to publish a Charter of Digital Rights which recognises, among others, the right to digital identity, access to the internet and cybersecurity, and the right of any person not to be discriminated against by artificial intelligence.

The president also emphasised that digital transformation "must be secure" and stressed the need to reduce technological vulnerabilities in a geopolitical context of growing instability. Pedro Sánchez has remarked that the Executive has set in motion the 5G Cybersecurity Law, The National Cybersecurity Plan, endowed with 1 billion euros, and has included campaigns on disinformation within the National Security Strategy.

PERTE of the New Economics of Language

The President of the Government of Spain has advanced the start-up of one of the flagship projects of the Recovery Plan: the National Neurotechnology Centre -Spain Neurotech, which will promote R&D&I in this nascent industry with a huge future projection. "With this objective in mind, we will soon start a dialogue with the Community of Madrid on the project presented by the Autonomous University of Madrid", in collaboration with the American universities of Columbia, Berkeley and Harvard, he explained.

Likewise, the Chief Executive has assessed the progress of the PERTE of the New Economy of the Language, with a public investment of 1.1 billion euros. "Spanish is one of our main assets and it is also one of our main assets in the world of technology and artificial intelligence," he said, highlighting the creation of extensive linguistic corpora for artificial intelligence, together with the Royal Spanish Academy, the National Supercomputing Centre and the new Global Observatory of Spanish.

"The digital transformation of the Spanish economy is an absolute priority for this government", he stressed, highlighting the allocation of more than 19 billion euros to make Spain "the most promising place for many leading digital companies". "The time is now," he said.

Non official translation