EU warns Italy on innovation: ‘Underdeveloped system, consider incentives’

Brussels – Artificial intelligence, information technology, cybernetics: all of this, or at any rate a large part of what represents the future and the immediate competitive present, does not seem to be for Italy. At least, this emerges from the recently published State of the Digital Decade report that the European Commission published. The report highlights how the country is lagging as a system. “The start-up ecosystem remains underdeveloped and does not reflect the size of the Italian economy,”  the third largest in the eurozone, the EU executive said. Hence, the recommendation to the government to “boost innovation in digital technologies by enhancing the national ecosystem” from research/university to technology transfer centers, start-ups, and scaleups, and “consider targeted incentives for key strategic sectors.“

The competitiveness of the country depends on it. Although most small and medium-sized Italian enterprises (70.2 percent) have reached at least a basic level of digital intensity, “only 8.2 percent of Italian companies have adopted artificial intelligence” within their production process, the EU executive’s document notes. It means that Italy lags with the EU calling on the G7 member country to assume its rightful role, doing as much as possible to “step up efforts to acquire a leadership position in the area of AI, also leveraging the existing centers of expertise and capabilities, including in the area of supercomputing.” What Brussels has requested is not a mere formality. Member states are being called on to examine the European Commission’s observations, and they will revisit the issue with the Commission to discuss the path to follow in the coming years. In 2026, the von der Leyen team will review the digital and technological innovation agenda to ensure the targets are still current and reflect the needs of the EU’s priorities and ambitions. In the meantime, however, countries must get their act together.

For Italy, it means revisiting the education revolution that Silvio Berlusconi promised in the 2001 election campaign when he pledged a school system based on three ‘I’s’ — enterprise, English, IT — where one of these should be extended and broadened in scope. The European Commission is urging the Italian government to “strengthen digital skills education in schools” to solve the problem of lack of technological knowledge. Only 45.8 percent of the population has basic digital skills (against an EU average of 55.6 percent). The gap affects, in particular, young people and adults with lower levels of education, as well as those who work, which is why the report urges Italy to “incentivize reskilling and upskilling for workers.”