19 and 20 April 2015

Chairperson of the Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget Mr Aleksandar Damjanović and member of the Committee Mr Veljko Zarubica participated in the Meeting of the Chairpersons of the Committees on Economic and Digital Affairs, organised within the parliamentary dimension of Latvia’s semi-annual presidency of the Council of the European Union in Riga.

At the beginning of the meeting, the present were addressed by Mr Gundara Daudze, Deputy Speaker of Latvian Parliament, Mr Edgars Tavars, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development and Mr Romans Naudinš, Chairperson of the Committee on Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Development of the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia.

The meeting, composed of three sessions, was chaired by Mr Romans Naudinš, Chairperson and Mr Edvards Smiltēns, Secretary of the Committee on Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Development of the Latvian Parliament.

Panellists of the first session titled: “Resources for a Digital Economy” were Mr Arnis Daugulis, Deputy State Secretary for Information and Communication Technologies and Electronic Management at the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia, Mr Bernd Becker, President of the EuroCloud Europe and Mr Juris Gulbis, Executive Director and President of the Management Board of the Latvian Telecom. During the said session, the importance of using digital potentials was emphasised (“big data and cloud computing”) for development of the European Union and it was said that economy focused to managing data as well as digital economy had strategic value for the EU member states, and that innovative usage of “big data” may increase the productivity of the EU. The participants stressed that it was necessary to establish unique and liberal legal framework in order to create preconditions for development of digital economy for new investments, equal opportunities for all participants for the purpose of using as much as possible advantages offered by the unique market.

During the second session, related to security and privacy in digital space, the following spoke: Mr Zoran Stančić, Deputy Director General European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission, Mr Andris Ambainis, Professor at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Latvian University and Ms Marija Lauristin, member of the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament. They emphasised that accelerated development of technology initiated a set of issues related to security and privacy of data and that it was important to provide unique regulations and criteria in the EU and that Directive concerning measures to ensure a high common level of network and information security was in drafting phase at the moment, in order to provide, inter alia, reliability of digital transactions. The said Directive should be finished by the end of the year.

During the third session titled: “Education and Employment in a Digital Economy”, panellist were: Ms Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Minister of Economy of the Republic of Latvia, Ms Dervla O ' Neill, Operations and Communications Manager at the Digital Skills Academy “Digital Hub” and Mr Martinš Kalis, Executive Director of the programme “Mission Possible”. During the said session, the importance of information technologies for education system was stressed as well as the need for adjustment of knowledge and skills to the needs of the labour market.