{"id":118387,"date":"2025-02-01T16:10:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T15:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/canarias-ante-la-revolucion-digital-nis-2-competitividad-y-el-desafio-del-modelo-economico-insular\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T19:24:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T18:24:57","slug":"canary-islands-digital-revolution-nis2-competitiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/blog\/canary-islands-digital-revolution-nis2-competitiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Canary Islands and the digital revolution: NIS2, competitiveness and the challenge of the island economic model"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By <\/span>Antonio Tejeda Encinas<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>, President of the <\/span>Euro-American Committee of Digital Law - CEA Digital Law<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>, CEO of <\/span>Meta Channel Corp<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1. A turning point: NIS2 and cybersecurity in the EU<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Cybersecurity in Europe<\/strong> is at a crucial moment. The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) has published its report “NIS Investments 2024”<\/strong>, in which it analyses the impact of the transition to the NIS2 Directive<\/strong>, a piece of legislation that strengthens companies\u2019 obligations in the field of digital security. This is not a mere regulatory adjustment, but a profound change in the way companies must address cyber risks.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The study, based on a wide-ranging survey of more than 1,350 organisations across the 27 Member States, makes it clear that investment in cybersecurity has increased, reaching 9% of the IT budget in many companies, but it also puts on the table a series of challenges that go far beyond money. The shortage of specialised talent is becoming a structural problem: despite growing demand, the number of employees dedicated to cybersecurity has fallen for the fourth consecutive year, which shows that companies\u2019 capacity to comply with NIS2 depends not only on their financial resources, but also on their ability to attract and retain qualified talent.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Even so, awareness of this legislation is high. Almost all the organisations surveyed know that they must comply with the directive, but the question remains whether they are really prepared to do so. And this is where the Canary Islands come onto the scene, because the challenges that the rest of Europe is already facing are magnified in an insular context such as that of the islands.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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2. The Canary Islands and NIS2: a challenge that puts their competitiveness in jeopardy<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Not all regions face digitalisation with the same tools, and in the case of the Canary Islands, adapting to NIS2 comes with additional difficulties that make cybersecurity not just a technological matter, but also a reflection of the structural problems that the archipelago\u2019s economy has long been dragging along.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Digital talent on the islands remains scarce, and not only because training in cybersecurity is not yet sufficiently widespread, but because some of the people who acquire these skills end up looking for opportunities elsewhere.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The brain drain, a recurring problem in the Canary Islands, becomes a real obstacle when we talk about digital security, because without trained professionals, local businesses have little chance of meeting the requirements of the new legislation.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But beyond the lack of specialists, the real challenge is the way in which Canarian businesses perceive cybersecurity. In a business fabric dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises, many of which operate on tight margins, digital security is still seen as an additional cost and not as a strategic investment. The problem is that this mindset collides head-on with NIS2, which turns cybersecurity into an inescapable legal obligation.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Added to this is another factor that complicates the transition: digital infrastructure in the Canary Islands still depends to a large extent on external operators and on connectivity that is not always up to current demands. In a global economy where cyberattacks can bring any company to its knees in a matter of minutes, not having robust infrastructure can make complying with NIS2 even more complicated for many local organisations.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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3. The problem is not just cybersecurity: it is the economic model<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Cybersecurity is just one of the many pieces of the puzzle. NIS2 puts an even bigger problem on the table: the Canary Islands\u2019 lack of competitiveness in the digital environment. For decades, the archipelago has depended on an economic model based on tourism and on traditional sectors that have resisted digital transformation. And although this strategy has worked up to a point, the world has changed, and the Canary Islands cannot afford to keep operating under a model that is already showing clear signs of exhaustion.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The problem is not only dependence on tourism, but the inability of businesses to innovate and adapt to the new digital reality. While other regions have promoted sectors such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology or automation, in the Canary Islands the debate remains centred on the same old problems: the lack of economic diversification, the bureaucracy that holds back business growth and the difficulty of attracting high value-added investment.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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And, of course, there is the question of the labour market. The gap between what employers ask for and what workers demand keeps growing. On the one hand, businesses claim that labour costs are too high for them to be competitive; on the other, employees insist that wages are not enough to cover the cost of living. Caught in this clash of interests, productivity remains low and the perception that “nobody wants to work” becomes a constant, although in many cases the problem is not a lack of willingness, but the absence of real incentives to improve performance and efficiency.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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4. Reinventing the Canary Islands: the need for structural change<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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If the Canary Islands want not only to comply with NIS2, but to become a benchmark in the digital economy, they need a clear strategy. The key lies not in carrying on doing the same thing and expecting different results, but in transforming the archipelago\u2019s productive and labour structure.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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To that end, it is essential that businesses and institutions begin to see the R\u00e9gimen Econ\u00f3mico y Fiscal de Canarias, REF Canarias, as something more than a mere tax-reduction mechanism for traditional sectors. If it were applied strategically to attracting technology companies, the island could become a hub of innovation and cybersecurity in the Atlantic, taking advantage of its geographical location and its connection with Europe and Latin America.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But attracting companies is not enough. It is also necessary to train local talent, because without specialists in cybersecurity and technology, any attempt at digitalisation will be superficial. The creation of advanced training centres in digital security and the implementation of hybrid working models can help more qualified professionals decide to stay on the islands instead of looking for opportunities elsewhere.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The labour market, for its part, needs urgent modernisation. It is not a matter of cutting wages or loading more taxes onto businesses, but of adopting models that reward productivity and efficiency, instead of remaining anchored in a system that measures work in hours and not in results.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Finally, the public sector must play a key role. It is not enough to impose regulations such as NIS2; the digital transition must be facilitated with incentives, advice and a business ecosystem that favours investment in innovation. If the Canary Islands do not take this transformation seriously, they will keep losing competitiveness in a world where the digital economy is no longer the future, but the present.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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5. Conclusion: adapt or be left behind<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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The real challenge of NIS2 is not only complying with the legislation, but understanding that digitalisation and cybersecurity are the foundation of any modern economy. The Canary Islands have two paths: they can carry on operating under a model that is already exhausted, or they can seize this opportunity to redesign their future.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The time for diagnoses is over. Now it is time to decide whether the archipelago wants to become a benchmark for innovation or to remain trapped in the inertia of its own problems. Because the future does not wait. Either we adapt, or we are left behind.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Antonio Tejeda Encinas, President of the Euro-American Committee of Digital Law - CEA Digital Law, CEO of Meta Channel Corp 1. A turning point: NIS2 and cybersecurity in the EU Cybersecurity in Europe is at a crucial moment. The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) has published its report “NIS Investments 2024”, in which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_cea_women":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1104,1110],"tags":[],"cea_women":[],"class_list":["post-118387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis-opinion","category-cybersecurity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123862,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118387\/revisions\/123862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118387"},{"taxonomy":"cea_women","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cea_women?post=118387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}