The new European certification scheme for IT security of cloud services (Eucs) could have a negative macroeconomic impact on the 27 countries of the European Union, with a market contraction of 0.2% in the short term, up to -3.6% in the long term. To give a more precise idea, it could cost Italy alone – in the best case scenario, 65.1 billion euros. The alarm is raised lo study on EUCS presented today by Assintel and carried out by the think tank European Center for International Political Economy (Ecipe) in Berlin and just submitted by Assintel.
Lo schema Eucs
The aim of the new certification scheme is to ensure a level playing field in terms of cybersecurity certification rules for cloud service providers in the EU, increasing the level of cybersecurity across the European Union. “However, the current provisions, which aim to exclude non-EU cloud companies from the highest level of certification and potentially from critical sectors such as the public sector, health, energy, transport and other regulated industries – underlines Assintel – could have the opposite effect.”
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This is because, according to the study, requirements on data localization, foreign control and ownership of cloud service providers, as well as local hiring obligations, defined as “sovereignty requirements” are measures that, if confirmed, “they would prevent non-European cloud providers from offering their services to EU businesses and public administrations, drastically reducing the suppliers on the market and the ability of users to access technologies”.
European innovation at risk?
According to the results of the Ecipe study, the new scheme would put European innovation at risk: lower investments by companies, in particular small and medium-sized ones – warns Assintel – quickly translate into a loss of competitiveness and increase the digital divide compared to other economies advanced, putting at risk the achievement of national and European targets in digital transformation.
“Assintel, always very careful to guarantee fair and correct competition between companies for the benefit of the development of the economic system and the competitiveness of digital companies, especially SMEs – comments the president Paola Generali – supports what emerged from this study and invites the political component to take strong charge of the issue at European level”.
The three scenarios of the study
The study examines three medium- and long-term implementation scenarios, classified according to the scope of the sectors involved and the use cases covered by the highest requirements of the proposal. Evidence shows that the finance, healthcare and education sectors would suffer the greatest consequences, particularly in small countries most dependent on digital and ICT services. However, the largest nominal losses are recorded in the largest states, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Even in the most favorable scenario – Assintel underlines – our country risks losing 3.5% of GDP, equal to 65.1 billion euros and the numbers are no better elsewhere. In general, the GDP of EU countries could experience a negative change of 0.2% in two years up to 3.6% in five years, due to the loss of cloud capacity, resulting in a slowdown in the technological development of companies and public administration.
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