The Digital Decade is a European Union initiative to achieve the Union’s digital goals by 2030. The initiative is guided by the 2030 Digital Compass, indicating four cardinal points for the EU’s Digital Decade: digital skills, digital business, digital public services, and secure and sustainable digital infrastructure.
The EU Liaison Team already reported on what NRENs can do to prepare in 2023. Following the publication of the 2025 annual reports, the NRENs are well-positioned to consider their position towards the Digital Decade and their national roadmaps again.
The newly published 2025 report
To achieve its ambitions, the Digital Decade policy programme set up a cooperation mechanism to monitor and evaluate progress, and for Member States to adjust their strategic roadmaps as needed. As part of the monitoring framework, the European Commission publishes a “State of the Digital Decade” report every year to inform a wider audience about the progress along the trajectories and to set out recommended actions to Member States.
In June 2025, the third annual “Report on the state of the Digital Decade” was published. The publication includes:
- The main report on the Digital Decade for 2025: It should be highlighted that the narrative of the report has clearly been upgraded to reflect some of most pressing topics of current EU politics, namely technological sovereignty, competitiveness, innovation, sustainability and resilience. The report also explains synergies between the digital and defense sector, raising the prospect of dual-use technologies
- The Annex with horizontal recommendations: An annex to the main report, this document provides an analysis of the key strengths to build on, as well as gaps and shortages, and offers recommendations to all EU Member States in the areas that require stronger collective action.
- The 2025 Country Reports: Providing insights into each country’s progress towards the Digital Decade goals. For each EU Member State there is a short executive summary available and a full country report.
Progress and challenges
The 2025 report identifies advancements in areas like basic 5G coverage, but the EU is still far away from reaching its goals for foundational technologies like AI, semiconductors, digital skills, or protecting vulnerable groups online. The report also identifies that progress has been uneven between Member States – some countries are progressing faster than their neighbours.
The recommendations from the Commission and the additional measures and investments undertaken in the Member States will inform the national roadmaps. The EU-27 national roadmaps are revised every two years, and the next iteration is planned for 2026.
Now is a good moment for NRENs to check whether they are mentioned in their country’s roadmap – not all 27 EU members have made them available yet – and to get in contact with their ministries to be mentioned in the revised version for 2026.
