ITI Publishes Tech Sector Recommendations for Incoming Lithuanian Council Presidency
BRUSSELS – Global tech trade association ITI today published policy recommendations for the 2027 Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Lithuania takes the helm with security and resilience at the top of the agenda and ITI’s recommendations start from the same place.
“Technology policy is security and resilience policy,” said ITI Director General for Europe Guido Lobrano. “AI, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, semiconductors, and communications networks are the foundation the rest is built on.”
“Europe’s resilience depends on investing in its own capabilities and on staying open to the trusted partners and global supply chains that make those capabilities possible. Trust should be assessed based on what providers actually do: their transparency, governance and risk management practices, state of the art cybersecurity, and supply chain resilience,” continued Lobrano. “Tech sovereignty should be understood as the ability of governments, businesses and users to act with confidence and autonomy when needed, without resorting to self-sufficiency”.
ITI’s recommendations focus on:
- Trusted partnerships: Promote objective, risk-based approaches to trusted technology providers based on governance, cybersecurity practices, operational independence, transparency and supply chain resilience. Geographic location or country of headquarters should not determine whether a provider can be trusted.
- Cloud and AI infrastructure: Accelerate Europe’s cloud, AI and data center capacity through streamlined permitting, predictable grid access, reliable and competitively priced energy, and harmonized, technology-neutral sustainability rules.
- Simplification: Build on Lithuania’s support for an Implementation and Consolidation Year by prioritizing implementation of recently adopted rules, regulatory restraint and systematic review of overlapping or cumulative obligations.
- Cybersecurity: Establish a clear, EU-wide and risk-based ICT supply-chain framework, with transparent criteria for identifying high-risk suppliers based on demonstrable cybersecurity risks.
- Digital Networks Act: Maintain clear regulatory boundaries so that telecom-specific rules do not inadvertently capture private networks, backbone infrastructure, data center interconnections, or content-delivery networks.
- AI implementation: Promote clear, practical and coordinated implementation of the AI Act through timely guidance, proportionate Codes of Practice, consistent application by the AI Board, mutual recognition and streamlined enforcement.
Read the full recommendations.