Contractors want EU autonomy over their construction data

During a webinar on 26th June, FIEC called on the EU to keep pushing towards its data autonomy objectives and consider construction as an essential sector generating that type of relevant data that must be kept in the EU. Opening the webinar, FIEC Vice-President Mr Chenu stated that “European construction companies do not have control over their own data and need new digital infrastructure so that data created by EU construction companies can be stored on EU servers, under EU jurisdiction”.

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Indeed, the webinar, which CECE attended, was the occasion to present and discuss with stakeholders a recent FIEC position paper on the role of software houses and calling for a fair and balanced relationship between these players and the European construction contractors.

EU institutional speakers included MEP Iskra Mihaylova, who emphasised the importance of current EU policy developments on data and Arian Zwegers, from the European Commission’s Directorate for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect), who spoke about some of the specific actions being taken at EU level, including the European cloud project GAIA-X.

Participants, mainly from construction companies and EU construction industry federations also heard the views of EFCA, Royal BAM Group nv, Eurovia and the University of Ljubljana. During the discussion, speakers and participants also mentioned the role of DigiPLACE as an example of European support measure to develop digital industrial platforms for construction.

In follow-up to the webinar, FIEC issued a press release calling for urgent action to secure EU autonomy over data.

Access here all webinar’s presentations.