The Vision Europe Dialogue 2019 took place in Helsinki, Finland on 1 and 2 April 2019 to discuss the theme “Making Europe a pioneer of the fair data economy”.
Data is the most valuable resource of the 21st century. How well it is used will largely determine the economic growth rates of societies. Compared to the US and Asia, the European Union has taken a very different approach to data privacy and people’s rights when personal data is collected or processed. To make the European way the winning strategy, respect for those rights needs to be economically viable and must allow data to be used to its full capacity. We believe that regulations such as the GDPR and PSD2 can be enablers of rather than obstacles to the free flow of data.
On the eve of the European elections, the Vision Europe Dialogue aimed to increase the level of debate on the data economy and the use of personal data. For too long experts in law, technology and business dictated the discussion, and there is an urgent need to make the debate more accessible and understandable for the wider public. European think tanks have the expertise and ability to make sense of the data economy for Europeans and, by joining forces with Europe’s leading decision-makers in the field, can make Europe a pioneer in the human-driven data economy.
Dialogue format
This year's event successfully launched a new dialogue-based concept that focused on the future scenarios of the data economy. For the event, Vision Europe partners provided short thought pieces about different aspects of the data economy, which will serve as a basis for the discussions, which you can find here:
The Dialogue saw a high-level keynote speaker, Alexander Stubb, the former Prime Minister of Finland and currently Vice-President of the European Investment Bank. Mr Stubb has been one of those urging Europe to lead the way in the digital revolution. The moderator of the panel discussion with the Vision Europe convenors was Luukas Ilves, Deputy Director and senior fellow at the Lisbon Council, a Brussels-based think tank and policy network.
For more information go to the homepage of our partner Sitra, which hosted the Vision Europe Dialogue 2019.
