Authors: Panagiotis Kitsos, Paraskevi Pappa

Title: CLOUD COMPUTING AS THE DRIVING FORCE OF DATA-POWERED ECONOMY. REGULATORY AND POLICY INITIATIVES IN EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

Given the dramatic increase of activity in the digital sphere, albeit government related activity or digital economy activity, it has been imperative that this sphere would have to be regulated and that stakeholders would submit to specific rules that would allow the prevalence of democratic principles  The paper presents the policy steps taken by the EU in relation to the Data-based Economy, mainly exploring the five  projects led by the EU and that are  related to Cloud Computing as a new space for solidifying the single market. In addition it presents the challenges faced by businesses established in the EU that are making use of facilities and cloud computing storage services that are located outside the EU, thus challenging the efficacy of the related existing sets of  EU rules.  Further, it discusses the efficiency of specific sets of rules that need to be adopted in relation to the five strategies that are in the spotlight at the moment.