On November 21, 2018, the European Commission published a press release on the outcome of the first EU Blockchain Industry Roundtable, which took place on November 20, 2018. The press release notes the establishment of the "International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications" that will be open to any firm that wishes to contribute to the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies in the EU. This new Association will work with the European Commission and EEA states that are part of the European Blockchain Partnership to support interoperability, develop specifications and promote standards and regulatory convergence in this area.
The European Blockchain Partnership was established earlier this year and has been signed up to by Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.
The press release is available at: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/eu-blockchain-roundtable-supports-efforts-deploy-blockchain-technologies-eu and details of the European Blockchain Partnership are available at: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/european-countries-join-blockchain-partnership.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.