Digital economy will destroy jobs, but Europe has to pay much more attention on real life-long learning process to help people acquire new skills, Andrus Ansip, the EU Commissioner for Digital Single Market, has told Novinite.

At a press conference after the opening of the CEEDS’15 by Webit, the biggest IT event in Southeast Europe, Ansip was asked whether the Digital Single Market would offer a response to the process of killing jobs triggered by digitalization, or will leave the answer up to member states. A Digital Single Market will boost economies but will also make some seats redundant.  

“I believe in progress which is creating more jobs that destroying them,” Ansip explained, though he also added care has to be taken of “those who have lost their jobs… We will all benefit ffrom digitalization.”

Asked by reporters on a precise timetable about abolishing roaming surcharges across the EU, Ansip reminded that the idea had been put forward as early as 2006 and was backed by both the European Parliament and the Commission.  He called for the step to be taken throughout the bloc, and voiced his disapproval of the model currently tabled for discussion which only gives a traveler abroad five minutes of calls, five text messages and five MB of data at a domestic price. In his words, roaming taxes “are not a sustainable model” and even telecoms have started to realize this.

Last year the EU moved to abolish roaming fees, but government members asked for the changes to be reversed to consider an adaptation period for telecoms.

Asked further on if it is part of the Commission's strategy that, for the progress tech champions in Europe are aiming at, the progress of American companies like Facebook and Google has to be stopped, Mr Ansip said that the Digital Single Market will be accessible to “both our own entrepreneurs and to entrepreneurs from third countries.”

“I think Americans are raising those questions too awkwardly. I am not the kind to prohibit or to make it more complicated for American companies to act in the European Union. Everybody has to benefit from the single digital market in the European Union and I am absolutely sure they will benefit from this."

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