Gabriel: Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans has already brought results

"This is the goal of the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans. A year ago, I said there was something new, this initiative, five months later we adopted the relevant declaration at the Sofia summit and the action plan was already in place in June. Now, just 6-7 months later, we have already begun to produce results," Gabriel noted, who praised the active role of neighbouring countries, such as Greece, in the whole effort.

The Commissioner admitted that there is a gap that mainly concerns connectivity. For this reason "this 30 million [euros] for the investment framework for the Western Balkans will be available throughout the region to provide technical assistance and feasibility studies. This will be a huge help in order to see how we can bridge this gap."

Another important initiative, as she noted, were digital skills, which "is a common challenge for all of us", as "even in Europe, only 44 pct of citizens have basic digital skills and only 37 pct of the labour force."

Seeing the need to strengthen the digital skills sector, the European Commission has managed to open up its pilot project providing digital education to young people from the Western Balkans. "It is a huge opportunity. Remember that we have created a platform where students are in direct contact with businesses, agreements are being made between the private sector and students, how they would like to do this training, for which the European Commission is giving 500 euros. This pilot project is now open to the Western Balkans and this is a very good development as there will be more participation," Gabriel said.