Policy Priorities
Europe’s digital transformation requires trust that is secure, interoperable and legally reliable. ESD works to ensure that Europe’s established trust infrastructure evolves with new technologies and is effectively embedded across the EU’s digital regulatory framework.
Four focus areas
01
Trust Services Across EU Digital Regulation
Qualified Trust Services provide a mature, EU-supervised and cross-border framework for integrity, authenticity, legal validity, confidentiality and accountability.
ESD advocates for trust services to be embedded by design across EU digital legislation and initiatives – from digital identity and cybersecurity to data, AI and the Digital Product Passport. Reusing Europe’s existing trust infrastructure can strengthen legal certainty and sovereignty while reducing complexity and compliance costs for European businesses, with particular benefits for SMEs.
Our objective: trust services by default – using established European trust infrastructure wherever trusted digital interactions are required.
02
A Future-Proof eIDAS Framework
eIDAS provides the legal and technical foundation for Europe’s trust services ecosystem. As the framework evolves, ESD works to ensure that it remains legally clear, technologically workable and capable of supporting innovation and competition.
Drawing on the operational experience of Europe’s Qualified Trust Service Providers, ESD advocates targeted improvements where the current framework creates legal uncertainty, cannot be implemented effectively or produces unnecessary regulatory burdens.
Key priorities include workable rules for the European Digital Identity Wallet ecosystem, legal certainty for Qualified Trust Service Providers, effective recognition of qualified services and certificates, and a competitive European market for digital trust.
03
Simplification and Coherent Digital Regulation
Europe’s digital regulatory framework increasingly combines horizontal and sector-specific requirements. Where different regulatory regimes address the same risks, businesses should not be required to demonstrate the same compliance repeatedly.
ESD advocates a single-audit and reuse-of-evidence approach, including mutual recognition of accredited assessments, modular conformity assessment and appropriate presumptions of conformity.
Simplification should mean: assess once, recognise across frameworks.
04
Innovation, Interoperability and European Digital Sovereignty
Europe should build the next generation of digital services on trusted, interoperable infrastructure that works seamlessly across borders.
ESD supports innovation in digital identity, electronic signatures and seals, electronic attestations of attributes, registered delivery, electronic archiving and emerging applications of trust services.
European standards and Qualified Trust Services can provide the trusted layer connecting new technologies, public authorities and businesses across the Digital Single Market.