A new study commissioned by DIGITALEUROPE and conducted by Frontier Economics shows that our policy decisions on international data transfers now will have significant effects on growth and jobs across the whole European economy by 2030, impacting Europe’s Digital Decade goals.
- Overall, Europe could be €2 trillion better off by the end of the Digital Decade if we reverse current trends and harness the power of international data transfers. This is roughly the size of the entire Italian economy any given year.
- The majority of the pain in our negative scenario would be self-inflicted (around 60%). The effects of the EU’s own policy on data transfers, under the GDPR and as part of the data strategy, outweigh those of restrictive measures taken by our major trade partners.
- All sectors and sizes of the economy are impacted across all Member States. Data-reliant sectors make up around half of EU GDP. In terms of exports, manufacturing is likely to be hit the hardest by restrictions on data flows. This is a sector where SMEs make up a quarter of all exports.
“Europe stands at a crossroads. It can either set the right framework for the Digital Decade now and facilitate the international data flows that are vital to its economic success, or it can slowly follow its current trend and move towards data protectionism.
Our study shows that we could be missing out on around €2 trillion worth of growth by 2030, the same size as the Italian economy.
The growth of the digital economy and the success of European companies is dependent on the ability to transfer data. This is especially so when we note that already in 2024, 85 per cent of the world’s GDP growth is expected to come from outside the EU.
We urge policymakers to use the GDPR data transfer mechanisms as it was intended, namely to facilitate – not to hinder – international data flows, and to work towards a rule-based agreement on data flows at the WTO.”