The Belgian authorities, which from January 1 will assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, announced plans to develop a transnational blockchain infrastructure. Local СМИ, citing Digitalisation Minister Matthieu Michel.
Primarily, distributed ledger technology is expected to be used for mutual recognition of diplomas, driver’s licenses and property rights, document tracking, and for financing small and medium-sized enterprises within the euro area.
To this end, Michel is championing a reboot of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) created in 2018, under the name Europeum, with its headquarters in Belgium.
The official noted that the project will underpin the digital euro, as well as form the basis for creating digital twins of cities and help, in particular, forecast flood risks.
“From the standpoint of security, transparency and privacy, blockchain can return to citizens control over the data that belongs to them,” said Michel.
Member states have already allocated €1 million to the initiative, but Michel hopes for additional funding from the European Commission.
Italy, Croatia, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Romania signed up to the plan and will help define the project’s structure, but Michel says other countries will have the opportunity to use blockchain.
In addition, discussions are underway with authorities in Japan and South Korea about recognizing documents outside Europe.
Alongside this, Belgium also intends to promote AI and online anonymity to advance digital sovereignty in Europe.
In March 2022, civil society groups and Members of Parliament urged EU institutional bodies to include Ukraine as full members of the European Blockchain Partnership with access to EBSI.
In June 2021, they had already proposed to EU leaders to create a unified blockchain-service infrastructure and presented a roadmap for blockchain integration with Europe.