The United Nation’s e-government rankings place the Danes at #1 in the world. It’s nice timing. Denmark chaired the Digital Nine + (D9+) Ministerial in Copenhagen last week, bringing together 13 digital ministers from Europe’s most digitally advanced countries

The Danish agenda is clear: Europe should digitalize like them, embracing technology in day-to-day life. Danes can divorce online. Digital payments are de rigeur: physical cash is rarely used. More than 2,000 public services are online.

But Denmark is also a leader in the pro-regulation, aggressive antitrust, and consumer-friendly European tradition, intent on reeling in large US tech firms. Danish European Parliamentarian Christel Schaldemose pushes for increasing liability on e-commerce markets. Denmark’s outgoing European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager served as the competition commissioner for the past decade, levying billions of euros in fines on Google, Apple, and other US tech leaders.

Vestager is now retiring, and Denmark’s digital voice risks being diminished in Brussels. The new Danish European Commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, will work on energy and housing. One of the country’s best opportunities to put forward its strong innovation and strong regulation agenda is to help reenergize the D9+. CEPA has published its ideas for achieving these goals.

The output from the Danish D9+ meeting was limited in scope. At the Copenhagen D9+ Summit, representatives from all 13 members signed off on a declaration calling on the next European Commission to tackle “consent fatigue” and develop an “ambitious and effective use-case strategy” for the digital identify wallets. That’s too unambitious, complained the S9+ group — a new coalition of startup associations from the D9+ countries. “When the most digitized countries in Europe can’t move beyond discussions about a wallet and cookies, it signals that Europe’s future is being shelved,” Peter Joakim Kofler, chairman of Danish Entrepreneurs, said in a statement to POLITICO. “Ministers should trade “protection and fear” with “bold action,” and put competitiveness and innovation higher up on the agenda.

Successive Danish governments have invested heavily in supporting innovation. The country’s physical and digital infrastructure is good. It has strong green credentials. The Danish wind industry is a global leader, and wind powers much of the country’s electricity. Despite having a population of only five million, Danish global players have become serious tech players. Shipping giant Maersk has honed in on AI for trade. LEGO, a maker of tactile toys, is seeing success with “online universes” for its many customers. And pharma superstar Novo Nordisk is pouring billions into quantum computing working in partnership with the state.

Denmark is selling the success. The Digital Hub is a public-private-partnership center that develops “govtech” tools to deliver digital government.” Located in an old sugar factory on Copenhagen’s docks, the Hub hosts visitors from other EU member states seeking to emulate Denmark’s e-government success.

The country broke new ground when it was the first nation to appoint a ‘tech ambassador’ to Silicon Valley. The Danish ‘strategy for tech diplomacy’ has the ambitious goal of “a responsible technological future for Denmark and the World.”

Introducing the S9+ (and Slovenia)

The Danes embrace business. At the D9+ gathering, a “stakeholder” event where the Business 9+, a grouping of business organizations from the member countries, opened proceedings. A new Start-up 9+, or S9+, also joined the meeting. The D9+ does not tout its achievements, and the S9+ is launching in ‘stealth mode.’ Details would be welcome. In the same week, Slovenia joined the grouping with zero fanfare, bringing the current membership to 13.

As D9+ chair, Denmark tabled an agenda of four main topics:

• Imposing age restrictions on digital content.
• Promoting an EU’s ‘Digital Wallet.’
• Reinforcing sustainability digitization/ Europe’s access to critical minerals, semiconductors, and other sensitive materials and technologies.
• Adopting ‘sustainable digitalization’ to meet EU’s green goals.

There’s widespread consensus on investing in the EU’s digital infrastructure. The new European Commission will be in favor. Recent high-level reports from Italian Prime Ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta promote investment.

‘Sustainable digitization’ will include suggestions around data center construction, and sensible approaches to large language artificial intelligence deployment to reduce energy usage. Denmark, which runs Greenland, also sees the Arctic as a potential source of key minerals.

The D9+ statement avoided strident recommendations on investment or sustainability. More EU-wide use cases e-government and private sector digital services such as a Digital Wallet were encouraged.

Age Restrictions

Although the EU’s new Digital Services Act sets out the rules for the biggest online content providers, it does not address age limits or restrictions however and Danes see a need to fill this gap. Meta has introduced ‘teen’ Instagram accounts in the United States. Google imposes sign-in rules for YouTube content. Some would prefer operating system or device-level controls, as opposed to requiring identification on individual apps. How to reliably establish the age of a user remains a concern, especially when legal penalties apply — and retaining personal data imposes obligations on firms of all sizes.

Denmark sees the EU’s Digital Wallet as part of the solution. In the Danish version, every EU citizen will retain a digital ID in the wallet and an online platform or app will be able to automatically read the ID to confirm if the user is over the required age. In a similar move, the EU successfully rolled out the digital Covid-19 vaccination certificate.

Some D9+ members have already come out in favor of stricter controls, but there is no current consensus on what age restrictions should kick in. The meeting statement calls for “a strengthened framework on cookies and online tracking” but it falls short of a hard call for an EU-wide approach to age identification.

In Denmark, trust levels between citizens and the state are high. It leads on technology adoption and is serious about long-term investment. These are things the EU can and should emulate. The Danes want the D9+ to help convince the rest of the EU that the answer to the EU’s digital stagnation is to be more Danish.

Ronan Murphy is Director of the Digital Innovation Initiative

Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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