Switzerland will be a CeBIT Partner Country in 2016

The European Commission wants to organize a high-level conference at CeBIT every year on digital union

The European Commission will bring added value to CeBIT in Hannover: Starting from the 2016 edition of CeBIT, which will take place from March 14 to 18, the curator Günther H. Oettinger wants to celebrate annually, at the most prominent fair in the world Digitization, a high-level conference on completing the Digital Union. The Digital Single Market Strategy is one of the most important and ambitious projects of the merger of 28 national markets to form a digital single market. The strategy will focus its action, European telecommunication networks, cross-border digital services and the foundation of a large number of innovative start-ups. With a volume of €415.000 billion, a fully functioning Digital Single Market could generate additional growth for the EU economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. In the coming years we will see at CeBIT the path that we have already traveled in the process of the Europeanisation of digital policies and where we still have to redouble our efforts to catch up with the European lag compared to global competitors", said Günther Oettinger, European Commissioner of Economy and Digital Society. With this, Oettinger wants to increase the EU's commitment to CeBIT, initiated by Neelie Kroes. For Oliver Frese, member of the board of directors of Deutsche Messe AG, the broad initiative of the European Commission clearly reflects the leadership of CeBIT as the most important event of the digital economy and international link between industry and politics. „CeBIT has long been no longer just a “computer fair”. It has left behind its character as an IT fair to become the first digitization event worldwide. For this reason, we are extremely proud to actively participate in the realization of the European Strategy for the Digital Single Market. The new high-level conference brings added value to CeBIT”, Frese stated. Starting from CeBIT 2016, the high-level conference will be organized annually to publicize progress in the development of the digital single market and compare it with international technological and social changes. The high-level conference will take place on the first trade fair day within the framework of the CeBIT Global Conferences. The program will revolve around the expansion of infrastructures and the issues of standardization, security and startups. Organized by the European Commission and Deutsche Messe AG, admission is free for CeBIT visitors.