Vince Cable, the UK’s secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, has called for the creation of a single digital economy in Europe.
In a speech in Lisbon, Cable said that such a market would provide consumers with better deals and allow businesses to grow.
“Europe has led the digital revolution in certain areas, such as Estonia’s use of digital government, the roll-out of high-speed broadband in some countries or the financial tech community in the UK”, he said, “but the European digital economy remains 28 different markets, each with its own regulations”.
Cable estimates that such a single market would boost the Eurozone economies by €340 billion, while simplifying life for start-up businesses and consumers. For example, businesses would no longer need a physical address in a country to register for a website with that country’s domain name, and administrative processes would only need to be completed once – not 28 times.
