The Syrian commercial city used the old 5/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  trading routes over land to Asia. And so the port town of Antwerp became the Venice of the 16th century. The significance of infrastructure becomes clear at this point. Changes have a transformative effect.
Alongside the many parallels, there is one difference between the route to India and digitalisation: the sea route was a discovery; digital infrastructure calls for a more targeted implementation and expansion of networks. There is already a highly developed political awareness of this, with France’s President Macron recently defining digital innovation as one of Europe’s core issues.