Contribution of ESIFs to the digital society development in the EU

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition of EU economies toward a higher level of digital society development. The European Commission set digitalization as one of its most important priorities for 2019-2024. As both the Cohesion Policy and the Next Generation EU aim to support the realization of EC priorities, in this paper we focus on examining and evaluating the allocations from European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIFs) to the digital society performance. The research results subverted expectations, revealing that ESIFs spending on ICT does not contribute to the digital society development. This highlights the need for more investment into the ICT to reduce the gap in performances of the EU member states.