The European Recovery Plan should enable the Czech Republic to substantially improve its telecommunications networks and the training of qualified personnel in the digital sector.

The Czech Republic will use around €1.6 billion of the €7.2 billion from the National Recovery Plan to develop e-government, e-commerce and digital transformation, Deputy Prime Minister for Digitisation and Regional Development Minister Ivan Bartoš, said at the Digital Czech Republic conference on Thursday (12 May).

Czech priorities include introducing a pan-European digital identity and digital signature, strengthening cybersecurity in line with the growing amount of data in cyberspace, and the education of IT specialists. The Digital Czech Republic strategy, which has been in the making for the past few years, serves as a basis for these.

Czechia ranks 18th in the European digital economy index, said European Parliament Vice-President Dita Charanzova (ANO, Renew). It excels in e-commerce but lags in broadband connection costs and struggles with a shortage of digitally qualified personnel.

Euractiv | Czechia’s digital shortcomings could be fixed with EU recovery money