The appeal, signed by DIGITALEUROPE and 24 national digital associations, comes ahead of Thursday's EU summit discussing the bloc's budget framework for the 2021-2027 period.

The associations say that the budget is the most powerful tool to accelerate digital transformation, urging increasing investment in digital infrastructure and digital competences to allow companies to make progress and help preserve the European way of life.

The GZS sent the appeal to PM Marjan Šarec, who will attend the summit. It said that digitalisation in Slovenia had the potential to generate an extra EUR 2.1 billion in GDP a year based on initiatives and measures that could be implemented by the state.

The chamber believes that with the state support Slovenia can advance much faster on the index of digital economy and society and boost the economy's competitiveness and productivity.

The GZS and other signatories appeal for the share of the EU budget spending on digital transformation to be raised from around 3% at the moment to 10%.

They want the Digital Europe programme expand from EUR 9.2 billion to 25 billion to maximise the short- and medium-term impact on skills.

They urge earmarking specific spending on digital innovation from other funding programmes, like the Common Agricultural Policy or Cohesion Policy, and increasing overall funding on research and development from 2% to 3% of EU GDP.