European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Keynote speech by Commissioner Albuquerque at DIGITALEUROPE's annual conference 'Master of Digital 2026' Brussels, 26 February 2026 Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank you to Digital Europe for the invitation, and congratulations on hosting a very impressive conference. I don't think anyone here today needs convincing that Europe is going digital, and that...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Keynote speech by Commissioner Albuquerque at DIGITALEUROPE's annual conference 'Master of Digital 2026' Brussels, 26 February 2026 Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank you to Digital Europe for the invitation, and congratulations on hosting a very impressive conference. I don't think anyone here today needs convincing that Europe is going digital, and that this transition across industries is essential for our resilience and success. We all know this story well, especially in this room. So, I won't dwell on the transition itself. What matters is that this is no longer a transition-in-waiting, this is a transition well under way. And let me tell you, others are taking notice. Over the last year or so, a lot has changed in the global economic and political landscape. Europe's renewed focus on competitiveness and strategic autonomy created a positive momentum, leading to an unprecedented start to 2026, with Europe now outperforming Wall Street in equity markets. This obviously also reflects the quality of our European firms and highlights that indeed Europe can invent, but to keep the momentum we need to deliver on the transformative agenda faster and better. The title of my intervention asks if Europe can invest. So today, I would like to speak about our work to improve the financing ecosystem that will support our vision for a Europe fit for the future. Europe has the ideas, the talent, the private capital, and most importantly, the ambition, to get us where we need to go. We just have to connect those dots – simple, right? Unfortunately, not. Like all major reforms, this is a complicated exercise. The disconnect between these dots means that too often, European ideas don't meet European financing, or they don't meet in Europe. I wonder how many of the global technology leaders present here today have built their success on European innovations and ideas. I'd imagine quite a few. In the EU, we are good at starting companies, but we need to do more to scale them. And in the digital world, more than anywhere else, scale and network effects make all the difference. A start-up in Europe can raise seed funding. But when it needs 50 million, 100 million, or 300 million euro to scale — the search often becomes global. Why? It's not that this money is not available in the EU, it's because the money is not being mobilised effectively to finance innovation. And when we don't finance our innovators, someone else does. The reality is that capital is not neutral. It determines where companies grow, where jobs are created, and where strategic decisions are made. We need more risk-ready financing in Europe. That means more venture and growth capital at bigger scale – a key objective of mine and an area on which we are currently consulting. I would like to invite you to participate in this public consultation so that, together, we can promote the changes needed to create scale, unlock investment and strengthen Europe's capacity to grow and compete. The digital economy does not stop at Member States' borders, and capital should not either. Addressing this is really what the Savings and Investments Union is about. Through the SIU we are building a financing ecosystem that goes beyond simply supporting companies and focuses on accelerating them. That means seed funding, venture capital, growth capital, and public markets. It also means reducing administrative friction. Since the beginning of this mandate, we are working to make the simplification of EU rules a reality. Our vision is that regulation protects but should also enable. We are working towards smart rules. Clear rules. Simple and predictable rules. I also want to speak about data, and how that links into our financing ecosystem. But first, some context. We are 6 years since the launch of our Digital Finance Strategy, and we have come a long way. We promote digital onboarding and e-identification – this reduces costs and makes cross-border activity and investment easier. We support distributed ledger technology in capital markets. This means faster settlement, higher transparency, lower costs, and global reach. We have brought in a clear framework and strengthened our resilience through our rules around crypto assets and digital operational resilience for financial institutions. And now we are developing frameworks for data sharing in finance. Because in the digital age, data is capital. And if this data is locked in silos, innovation slows. If data flows safely and securely, innovation accelerates. Open finance empowers consumers. It empowers innovators. It empowers incumbent data holders, pushing them to compete and continue to earn the trust and loyalty of their customers. Data sharing also gives investors access to better financial products. And these links are critical for those willing and ready to deploy capital. Institutional investors, for example, with deep expertise and long-term horizons, need to see the full picture of their investments. Again, data is key. Part of our work is to ensure that these investors, our partners in fuelling European growth, have a clear view over their pipeline of investments. Ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to the SIU, the biggest risk we are trying to combat is inertia – standing still while the world passes us by, ever faster. We have to think less local and more European when it comes to capital markets, we need to focus our efforts to move institutional capital to where it is most useful throughout the Union, and we have to show companies that they have a future in Europe, including through listing on public markets. We have to unlock data and promote simple, secure and performant data sharing and data portability. And we have to fully exploit tokenised assets, distributed ledger technology, and AI. This gives us a new channel to make European assets globally accessible, scalable, and secure. These are ambitious goals, and policymakers and regulators alone won't be able to make them a reality. The era of 'national champions' and intra-EU protectionism is over. The reality is simple, if your only competitors are your European neighbours, you are playing in the second division. It is time to act with continental scale to have a global reach, because that is what our true competitors do. Europe has never lacked ideas, talent or the capacity to innovate. What we must now prove is that we also have the ambition to invest — at scale, with confidence, and with a clear sense of direction. Innovation will be driven by capital that moves freely, by markets that are deep and integrated, and by rules that give innovators the certainty to build the future here in Europe. This is our moment to connect invention with investment. To turn Europe's scientific leadership into industrial strength. To act not as twenty-seven separate markets, but as one. Finance is not on the sidelines of the digital transformation — it is its engine. And that is why I call on all of you — industry leaders, innovators, investors and policymakers — to work with us in building the Savings and Investments Union. Because a more digital Europe will only succeed if it is also a more integrated, more ambitious and more investment-driven Europe. Not that long ago, the financial sector was part of the problem. Now, we are working to guarantee it will be part of the solution. Thank you. SPEECH/26/491
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