Digitalisation in Europe 2021-2022

The coronavirus crisis accelerated the digital transformation of Europe's economy. Before the pandemic, cutting-edge digital technologies were primarily used by the most innovative and modern firms. The COVID-19 crisis, however, brought the digital transformation to the larger society - and made digitalisation integral to firms' survival. Digital firms were better able to cope with the disruption unleashed by the pandemic, and they were less likely than non-digital firms to see sales decline significantly from 2020 onwards. Many of them used the crisis an opportunity to accelerate their digitalisation.  The Digitalisation in Europe 2021-2022 report uses results from the EIB Investment Survey (EIBIS), conducted from April to July 2021, to shed light on the level of digitalisation among Europe's small and medium firms.

About the European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank Group is the EU bank and the world's biggest multilateral lender. We finance sustainable investment in small and medium-sized enterprises, innovation, infrastructure, and climate and environment. We have financed Europe's economic growth for six decades and are at the forefront of EU crisis response, leading the world in climate investment and backing development of the first COVID-19 vaccine. We are committed to triggering ?1 trillion in investment in climate and environmental sustainability to combat climate change by the end of this decade. About 10% of all our investment is outside the European Union, where our EIB Global branch supports Europe's neighbours and global development.