Cloud regulations must be consistent so that there is no room for legislative uncertainty. Regulations should encourage development of new solutions. It is highly important to conduct a thorough analysis of the possible economic impact of the proposed regulations. Partners from across the Atlantic cannot be excluded from the talks. Close cooperation is required to combat the growing cyber-threats to the whole EU, and to the countries of Central and Eastern European region (CEE) in particular. These are the main messages from the EU authorities' representatives, the digital industry and cloud technology experts during the '#CloudChallenger' conference held in Brussels.

The event, which was held in the headquarters of Business & Science Poland, was attended by representatives of the European Commission, the authorities of the CEE countries, experts from the cybersecurity industry, and specialists in cloud and cyber technologies from public agencies and private enterprises. The conference was organised by the Digital Poland Association. It was one of the events within the framework of the CEE Digital Coalition - an alliance of digital industry organisations from Central and Eastern European countries. During the conference, experts presented a regional perspective on the future of the cloud both in their countries and the EU.

Legislation that would determine the future of the cloud in the region
In his opening remarks, a representative of the European Commission said that one of its objectives was to put individual and business users in control of the data they generate. – The Commission wants to encourage business to use and share their data to maximise the efficiency of its use within the EU. This requires incentives. Companies need to feel that sharing data is useful to them and that they can profit from it. We need to move towards a regulatory win-win situation," said Pierre Chastanet, re-presenting the European Commission's Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology.
Representatives of the digital industry expressed their concerns about the emerging European cloud certification scheme (EUCS - European Cybersecurity Certification Scheme for Cloud Services), which sets out requirements for cloud technologies and their providers. They also pointed at the EU's Data Act. It was warned that the proposed provisions could make it difficult or impossible for cloud service providers to operate legally in the Union.
– Regulatory initiatives - which will impact our region's economic and human potential to utilise cloud technology - are being decided today in the EU. This shall not be an easy task, but we must ensure that these regulations do not create barriers to cloud implementation in the private and public sector. Limitation of available services and raising costs of cloud implementation can be among the new regulations' results – argued Michał Kanownik, President of the Digital Poland Association and leader of the CEE Digital Coalition.
– Central and Eastern European countries are way behind in terms of cloud usage by the private sector. We lose a lot on this. The cloud created up to 1.6 million new jobs in Europe between 2008 and 2020. It contributed an additional €449 billion to the EU economy during this period. What our region needs today is an incentive for cloud development and deployment, not regulatory barriers to transformation," added the president of Digital Poland.

Global cooperation on cloud development
The experts pointed out another difficulty - popularisation of cloud-solutions and reaching out to SME sector. The representatives of the latter often lack necessary competences. In consequence, cloud technology deployment among the SMEs has a slower pace than among large companies. Close cooperation between private and public sector is key factor for the progress.
–Broad collaboration is required today to address the growing challenges of cloud-deployments and the cyber security. Cloud technologies are one of the answers to today's digital threats. Data migration to the cloud has allowed government entities and private companies to increase security of procedures and resilience to crisis situations, told Lie Junius, Senior Director of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google Cloud. – 'We want to participate in a debate on deepening digital security in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as across the EU. We understand very well that for further digital transformation and continuation of cloud deployment, we need to create the conditions for innovation and mutual trust among those involved in these processes,' added the Google representative.