Luxembourg outperformed digitally by Estonia and Ireland

(CS) Luxembourg performed well in the latest edition of the EU's Digital Economy and Society Index, with the country placed ninth overall; however, a number of areas with room for improvement also emerged in the study.

The DESI assesses connectivity, human capital, use of internet, integration of digital technology and digital public services across the EU.

While still placed in the top half of the index this year, among the medium-performing countries, Luxembourg dropped two placed compared to 2014, when it was ranked seventh out of 28. 

Despite high scores in the connectivity, use of internet and human capital categories, where Luxembourg performed above EU average, a more detailed look shows a more nuanced picture.

For example, the Grand Duchy ranked only 20th in mobile broadband take-up, despite top marks for fixed broadband, where Luxembourg ranked first with 91 percent of households connected.

Similarly, in the human capital category, Luxembourg placed first for the number of internet users and basic digital skills among people aged 16 to 74. However, the country was last in the EU for producing graduates in the science, technology and mathematics field, with only 2.8 STEM graduates per 1,000 people, compared to an EU average of 17.

The study did make note of the Digital4Education initiative which aims to promote digital technologies in schools.

In the area of integration of digital technology by businesses, Luxembourg also performed below EU average in a number of areas, such as eInvoices, cloud services, online sales by small and medium-sized enterprises and e-commerce turnover.

The country's businesses thereby failed to “take full advantage of the possibilities and benefits offered by digital technologies, to improve their efficiency and productivity, and reach out to customers to sell goods and services.”

'Considerable potential'

In the digital public services dimension, Luxembourg improved its ranking by one spot but still ended up just 23rd out of 28 member states. Despite improvements in a number of areas, the Grand Duchy failed to catch up with the progress made by other member states, with eGovernment and eHealth identified as “key challenges for Luxembourg” in the DESI report.

“Luxembourg has considerable potential to improve its offer of online public services,” the report stated, adding: “Luxembourg could do more, notably to improve the availability of open data.”

Denmark ranked first in the 2015 DESI, followed by Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium. The top five remained unchanged compared to last year, except for Finland and the Netherlands swapping places.

However, Estonia, last year in 8th place, was able to improve its score to reach 7th this year. Ireland, meanwhile, jumped from 11th place in 2014 to 8th place this year, leaving Luxembourg ninth, despite an overall improvement of the Grand Duchy's DESI score. Lithuania was pushed from rank nine last year to 11th place in this year's ranking, also because of Estonia and Ireland's better progress.

Elsewhere in the DESI ranking only little changed between 2014 and 2015. Spain (14) and France (15) switched places compared to last year. Towards the bottom end Cyprus (22) and Poland (23) were both able to push up one slot, leaving Croatia 24th compared to its previous spot in 22nd place.

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