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Adopt the regulatory playbook of the digital frontrunners, from digital-first procurement to SME-friendly data rules, to lift the digital economy across all member states.
The gap inside Europe is almost as instructive as the gap with the US. The D9+ countries, from Estonia to Denmark to the Netherlands, consistently outperform the EU average on digital adoption, e-government and startup density. They did not get there by spending more; they got there through regulatory choices: digital-first public procurement, SME-friendly data rules, and administrations that treat a new company as a customer rather than a filing.
That playbook is documented, tested and transferable. What is missing is the political decision to adopt it across the EU27 instead of treating digital frontrunners as a curiosity.
A single market that runs at 27 different digital speeds is not a single market. Lifting the slower member states toward D9+ practice is the cheapest competitiveness program Europe has available, because the manual is already written.
The data behind this insight
Policy recommendations from the S9+ coalition, the startup organisations of Europe's digital frontrunner (D9+) countries, driven by Danish Entrepreneurs.
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