Research and Comparative Analysis on European Digital Rights

Aims of the tool

The purpose of this report is to determine to what extent progress has been made towards the success of the objectives set out at the start of the Digital Decade, where it has been effective and where it could be improved. Thus, our main objectives are:

1. Observe the actions of Member States aimed at meeting the goals of the Digital Transition. Ranging from legislation, rules and regulations to public policy plans carried out by state or local governments in the Union.

2. Analyse the way in which these actions have been implemented and assess their
results with special attention to their scope according to criteria of geography (rural vs. urban environment) and age (young vs. old population).

3. Compile all tools, educational resources, grants and scholarships, citizen and business assistance programmes developed of free access, to make them available to citizens in a centralised and simple way.

Description of the tool

Based on the Eurobarometer and the Declaration on European Digital Rights and Principles to assess how Spain, France, Belgium and Estonia have contributed to the transformation through legal procedures, legislation and various public policies.

The reason for this selection is based on the fact that only Spain and France have regulated through binding legal instruments in this area, so their experience would be compared with that of the other two countries where our project partners are located. We have asked ourselves some questions such as: ‘Are our rights guaranteed?’ or ‘Do we have the right tools to face the digitalised world that is coming? Questions that we will try to answer in the following pages.

This report is intended to be the first step of a thousand miles project supported by the Erasmus+ Programme as a KA2 project to engage young people in these questions while enhancing synergies between academic experts, institutional related workers and the vision of ordinary partners. Therefore, the project includes (1) the creation of a web portal hosting an online and accessible training platform on European digital principles (2) the organisation of an international training seminar in Estonia where attendees will be taught how to raise awareness of digital rights and finally (3) a series of follow-up activities planned to spread awareness of digital rights among the EU population.