The European Commission has unveiled its concept of a European Cloud Partnership, to launch with an initial investment of EUR 10 million. The EC has been developing its strategy for cloud services for over the past year, Eurocommissioner Neelie Kroes said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The EC had already proposed new rules for data protection in the twenty-first century, including for data in the cloud but Kroes now also wants to involve the public sector and industry, and is inviting all parties to join in an European Cloud Partnership. In the first phase, the Partnership will come up with common requirements for Cloud procurement. For this it will look at standards and security and ways to ensure competition, not lock-in. In the second phase the Partnership will deliver proof of a concept solution for the common requirements. In the third phase reference implementations will be built. Kroes expects good progress in setting the Partnership up in 2012, with first results the year after. The Commissioner stressed that the strategy is not about about building a European super-Cloud but to set up a strategy as a whole to ensure Europe becomes not just Cloud-friendly, but Cloud-active.
