Greek MEP Eva Kaili met with Cedefop Acting Director Mara Brugia and members of the management team during a visit on 20 June, when she also addressed a high-ranking EU Interinstitutional Committee on IT (CII) meeting, hosted by the agency.
The exchange of ideas and information with Cedefop was to touch base on common themes of interest. It has yielded plans for future cooperation, including a joint event. This will be an occasion to present to the incoming European Parliament the results of Cedefop’s ongoing flagship projects, exploring the impact of digitalisation on skills and jobs, namely through the analysis of skill needs emerging from online job vacancies and of new forms of work.
Visiting Cedefop – which is located in Thessaloniki, Ms Kaili’s hometown – was one of her first undertakings following her recent re-election. Having been a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy during her first term, she has developed political expertise on new technologies.
The exchange of views with CII members centred on interinstitutional cooperation between EU institutions and decentralised agencies to achieve economies of scale, share best practices when introducing new technologies (e.g. cloud, AI, blockchain), foster open source adoption and strengthen data protection and cybersecurity.
Ms Kaili highlighted the need to enforce Europe’s global position in terms of technological development: while the EU cannot compare to the US and China in terms of business investment or government spending, it can take the lead, with its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on protecting privacy and human rights, values that matter to European citizens.