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Bakytzhan Sagintaev Presented Digital Union Concept on Integration of EAEU Digitalization Processes
On October 1, the plenary session of the Eurasian Economic Forum "Digitalization in Modern Realities — An Imperative for Ensuring the Four Freedoms" was held in Yerevan.
Keynote speakers were Heads of Government of the Eurasian Economic Union countries: Nikol Pashinyan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Roman Golovchenko, Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus, Oljas Bektenov, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Akylbek Japarov, Head of the Executive Office of the President — Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic, Mikhail Mishustin, Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, and Bakytzhan Sagintaev, Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission.
Abdulla Aripov, Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, and Mohammad Reza Aref, First Vice-President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, also took part in the Forum.
At the forum, Bakytzhan Sagintaev presented the Commission's vision of digitalization processes within the Eurasian Economic Union.
"Building on the successful practices of national governments and leveraging the power of an integrated information system, we put forward the Digital Union idea. Its goal is to demonstrate the real benefits of Eurasian economic integration to our peoples and businesses. At the same time, we proceeded from the unconditional inviolability of digital sovereignty of the Member States," said the Chairman of the EEC Board.
This concept was agreed with the relevant agencies of the EAEU states responsible for digitalization.
Bakytzhan Sagintaev emphasized three fundamental principles on which the Digital Union will be built and which do not affect national digital sovereignty in any way.
First of all, it is the compatibility of regulatory and infrastructure solutions that will be used in shaping of the Digital Union. In this regard, no changes to national digital platforms will be required.
Secondly, synchronization and seamless interoperability of national digital platforms will be ensured.
The third principle is integration: the Digital Union aims to digitalize all four freedoms to the extent and at the pace that the Member States are willing to have, with each country able to tap into elements of the common platform as and when required.
Such principles will connect the best country digitalization solutions, thereby enabling their further scaling up.
The creation of a mutually recognized system of identification and authentication of citizens and legal entities of the Eurasian Five countries without data transfer is also important. A pilot project on mutual recognition of these systems is already being implemented by the EEC together with Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, while Kazakhstan is in the process of joining the project.
"We will consistently, taking into account the national interests, continue to realize the competitive advantage of the Eurasian Economic Commission — the legitimate right to ensure cross-border information exchange," said the Chairman of the EEC Board.
