News about Digital Skills

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a provisional political agreement on the first-ever Digital Europe programme, part of the EU's long-term budget presented by the Commission.

Young people from all over Europe are showing a growing appetite for coding activities, robotics and computational thinking, as the record participation in EU Code Week clearly reveals. The number of people taking part has grown from 10,000 to 2.7 million in just six years. The 2019 edition will take place from 5 to 20 October.

The European Commission published the first reports submitted by signatories of the Code of Practice against disinformation signed in October 2018. While the Commission welcomes the progress made, it also calls on signatories to intensify their efforts in the run up to the 2019 EU elections.

Online platforms have submitted a first implementation report setting out the state of play of the measures taken by each of them to comply with their commitments under the Code of Practice on Disinformation. The Commission welcomes these actions but calls on online platforms to intensify their efforts in the run up to the 2019 European elections.

The STARTS programme launches local initiatives in schools to have artists and IT experts jointly teach digital skills.

Speech by Vice-President Ansip, European Commissioner for Digital Single Market and Vice President of the European Commission, at UNCTAD/Africa E-Commerce Week.

The European Commission has launched an annual scoreboard to monitor women's participation in the digital economy, on the occasion of the birthday of Ada Lovelace, considered as the world's first computer programmer. The Women in Digital scoreboard is one of the actions to assess women's inclusion in digital jobs, careers and entrepreneurship initiated by Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. The Scoreboard assesses EU countries' performance in the areas of internet use and internet user skills, as well as specialist skills and employment, based on 13 indicators.

Commissioner Mariya Gabriel presented the 2018 European Digital Skills Awards to five extraordinary projects which are helping improve Europeans’ digital skills.

At the Telecoms Council of 4 December, the EU ministers adopted a partial general approach on the Digital Europe Programme. Building on the Digital Single Market strategy, launched in May 2015, and its achievements over the past years, the European Commission proposed in June 2018 to create the first ever Digital Europe Programme and invest €9.2 billion in tomorrow's digital technologies as part of the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027.

23 National Coalitions exist under the umbrella of the pan-European Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition. Find out more about their activities through these factsheets.