Michiel Steltman talks in iBestuur about the letter sent to parliament by Raymond Knops, State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations, about data centres in the Netherlands.
Steltman concludes that cloud services are the basis for virtually all digital innovations. The EU, ENISA and the Online Trust Coalition share the vision that trust in the cloud, safeguarded through adequate assurances, is essential for a thriving economic future. What we need is a government that also dares to embrace this vision.
REMARKABLE LETTER
Last week Raymond Knops, State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations, sent a remarkable letter to parliament about data centres in the Netherlands.
It’s striking that the letter covers two totally different topics: a spatial planning issue in the municipalities of Amsterdam and Haarlemmermeer, and the use of cloud services by the government. Apparently, the term data centre was sufficient reason to address the two issues in the same letter. Just as striking are the state secretary’s responses to the questions asked by parliament. In his brief answer to the question about the restriction on expansion opportunities for data centres in the Amsterdam metropolitan region, he describes the issue as an ordinary local conflict of interests between parties wanting to use the limited space and power. Clearly, however, this topic is much more far-reaching than that. Growth opportunities for the digital economy in our country are absolutely fundamental to digitisation, digital sovereignty and our future earning capacity. >> Read the whole article on the iBestuur website (Dutch language only)