ISSUE 6

eEurope Initiative

The European Commission launched in December 1999 an initiative entitled eEurope -  An Information Society for All, which proposes ambitious targets to bring the benefits of the Information Society within reach of all Europeans. The initiative focuses on ten priority areas, from education to transport and from healthcare to the disabled. The initiative is a key element in the President’s strategy to modernise the European economy.

President Prodi stated that "these changes, the most significant since the Industrial Revolution, are far-reaching and global. They are not just about technology. They will affect everyone, everywhere. Managing this transformation represents one of the central economic and social challenges facing Europe today. The eEurope Initiative is intended to help overcome these challenges and thereby accelerate the modernisation of the European economy, with a positive impact on employment, growth, productivity and social cohesion. Europe has already successfully accomplished historic projects such as the Single Market and the euro. There is no reason not to take the political step of producing a similar dynamic forward-looking response to the Information Society."

The key objectives of the eEurope Initiative are:

• Bringing every citizen, home and school, every business and administration, online and into the digital age.
• Creating a digitally literate Europe, supported by an entrepreneurial culture ready to finance and develop new ideas.
• Ensuring that the whole process is socially inclusive, builds consumer trust and strengthens social cohesion.

To achieve these objectives, the Commission proposes 10 priority areas:

1. European youth into the digital age: bring Internet and multimedia tools to schools and adapt education to the digital age.
2. Cheaper Internet access: increase competition to reduce prices and boost consumer choice.
3. Accelerating e-commerce: speed up implementation of the legal framework and expand use of e-procurement.
4. Fast Internet for researchers and students: ensure high speed access to Internet thereby facilitating co-operative learning and working.
5. Smart cards for electronic access: facilitate the establishment of European-wide infrastructure to maximise uptake.
6. Risk capital for high-tech SMEs: develop innovative approaches to maximise the availability of risk capital for high-tech SMEs.
7. "eParticipation"s for the disabled: ensure that the development of the information Society takes full account of the needs of disabled people.
8. Healthcare online: maximise the use of networking and smart technologies for health monitoring, information access and healthcare.
9. Intelligent transport: safer, more efficient transport through the use of digital technologies.
10. Government online: ensure that citizens have easy access to government information, services and decision-making procedures on-line.

"Technologies and markets today move at a much faster pace than perhaps ever before in economic history", says Mr Erkki Liikanen, Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, who has co-ordinated the preparation of the Initiative. 

There is no time to wait until the current policies of Member States and the Commission deliver. A major effort has to be made to advance key policies. This is why an initiative - eEurope - needs to be taken now.

The Communication refers to the experience in the United States where Internet-related companies alone today account for 2.3 million direct jobs - not counting the considerable indirect employment effects - up from 1.6 million in 1998. "Europe needs to build on its strengths", says Mr Liikanen. It has a leading role in mobile communications and digital TV. Yet the uptake of the Internet has been relatively slow. These industries are currently converging, giving Europe the opportunity to capitalise on its technological strengths and to harness its educational excellence and release its entrepreneurial potential. By combining digital literacy with strength in mobile communications, Europe can lead the next great leap to a wireless Internet world."

For more information on this subject, please visit www.ispo.cec.be or www.europa.eu.int and use the search facilities included.