Digital Europe: urgent action required
Digital Europe needs urgent action to become one and drive the economy
Datanews reports the Lobby group DigitalEurope calls out the clock is ticking to create the digital agenda, the action field of Commissioner Kroes. The Digital agenda, scheduled for May 18th, needs to be a strong message, to push agenda forward. "With a mere 7% of e-commerce across borders and each country still maintaining local rules, there is a lot of work to be done", says Erkki Ormala, President of Digital Europe in Brussels, where the lobby group presented ‘A Transformational Agenda for the Digital Age’. The association unites ICT-companies such as IBM, Intel, Apple, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco en Siemens.
The world is at a turning point. So is Europe. These are no ordinary times. What Europe needs is a transformational agenda. José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, "A Vision for EU 2020" October 2009
Digital agenda is urgent and important
Gerard De Graaf, Head of Unit, Strategic Objective Prosperity of the European Commission, admitted there was a ‘sense of urgency’ is, but says he doubted that Europe is fully aware of this. “The importance of broadband is still underestimated", he stated. Anthony Whelan, Head of Cabinet of Neelie Kroes confirmed that on May 18th the document on the ‘Digital Agenda’ as part of the ‘EU 2020’ vision would be ready. He added the key is not technology, but people.
Poke – poke back
The DigitalEurope document can be a supplementary source of inspiration, with a series of quick wins in varied sectors.This is a serious 'poke', as they say on Facebook, where friends give each other a little "push", to confirm they're still there and show they care. Barroso II clearly wants to make ICT a spearhead of policy for the years to come. And rightly so. The poke will be seen as welcome, and no doubt will receive a "poke back". ICT is one of the cards to play in the transformation of Europe, and true, the tide is high, with the Bric countries knocking ever louder at the door (and who knows soon after the world cup BricS, with South Africa joining the world growth leaders?)
EU citizens’ initiative: E-Gov 2.0 in the making
Maros Sefcovic, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth today in the Guardian introduces
the European citizen's initiative. "Bringing Europe closer to its citizens" talks about opening a door to more participation
of EU citizens in policy.
With the digital tools available (and growing) throughout Europe, this initiative is an exciting step towards E-government 2.0.
It is an opportunity for citizens to claim 'their' Europe, instead of blaming Brussels for being self-centered and exclusive.
The EU Commissioner hopes for support of the European parliament and the member countries, to see the first
initiatives start early in 2011. Sounds like an excellent plan.
As mister Sefcovic states, the European citizens' initiative will challenge the complexity and detachment from its citizens
the EU is ofter accused of. But the idea can only work when it is embraced by the EU citizens. As often is the case in a
democratic system, new rules only have the effect on society that the people make of them.
Still, this is an exciting step forward in 'people power' in EU government.The proposal for the first time gives Eu citizens
the chance to call for new European laws.
As the new commissioner says:
It is a concrete example of what we talk about so often in Brussels: "bringing Europe closer to its citizens".
It is my conviction that fostering a lively cross-border debate about what we are doing in Brussels will lead
to better rule-making, inspired by the grass roots. I am very excited about this idea, which I believe represents
a real step forward in the democratic life of the union.
The process is simple: find 1 million signatures from at least 9 EU member states for your new law and Europe will
debate your proposal. People can sign up both on paper and online, making this a reasonable procedure.
The signatures will be verified and the idea checked to see if it falls within the powers of the EU. The next step then
is that the commission has four months to decide how to proceed. It can make a proposal for legislation, take other
measures such as a feasibility study, or can decide that it is not appropriate to take any action. But in the best
democratic tradition, the decision will have to be clarified and communicated in a report that is publicly available.
Europeana, a great idea but will it work?
Europeana?
Have you ever heard of Europeana? It is the ambitious plan to make Europe’s entire scientific and cultural heritage freely available at a single web site. Not just books, but also papers, sound recordings, images, paintings and videos … What an exciting, fantastic tool this can be for schools, scientist and the regular citizen, would'nt you say?
Let's type in 'Derain' in the search field and see what the library offers. Derain was Matisse's colleague painter involved in discovering the art of "Wild painting" labeled Fauvism, so he surely deserves a space in this library. Not bad… today you find 1 text, 456 images, 5 videos and 2 sound bytes. Excellent! Matisse has even 14 video links, one leading to a debate with French book guru Bernard Pivot.
After 15 months, the mark of 10 million documents is approaching, Euronews says. Good news. In an update report, they indicate that France has been the best student in the class by far, adding up to 47 % of the material to the digital library. Germany is second, with 16%, then the Netherlands and the Uk with 8 percent each. In all 5 % of European books are in the database, the report says.
One for all, all for one?
Still, in order to make the engine successful, all European member states have to do their bit, or the database will remain a lesser god in search engine land, falling short to the Google monopoly. Also, the intellectual property rights and the harmonizing of the European royalties are on the agenda and need to be settled.
This seems to be a typical EU story. A great idea, with lots of wonderful positive energy. But without the real commitment of all countries in the EU, many good initiatives fall short of delivering spectacular results they could generate. And with legal restrictions to boot, to further decreasing attractiveness (but all according to the book). Google first moves then looks behind (facing… Europe for sanctions).
Could national and regional pride make it work? Hugo Claus, the Flemish author, poet, screen writer, painter, enfant terrible who died last year does not exist in Europeana, while he has 412.000 hits on Google. The Flemish might want to correct that… And with them all the other nations for their cultural heritage!
As the three musketeers of Alexandre Dumas said "One for all, all for one!"
Microsoft and EU Commission make peace
Neelie Kroes said she had an early Christmas present for hundreds of Millions of Eu citizens: Europeans will get to pick their browser after Microsoft agreed to offer Internet users a choice to avoid fresh fines. "Millions of European consumers will benefit from this decision by having a free choice about which web browser they use.", Kroes said.
Microsoft’s Windows operating system runs more than 90 percent of all computers in the world, so this is an important breakthrough. But also, the fact that the browser wars are over, might open the road for a new era in European technology, where the European household and the American software giant could be partners in building the new digital agenda. So the early Christmas present announced by Neelie Kroes today could result in a much bigger gift to the citizens: a more open, creative, dynamic web and telecom environment for all!
Neelie Kroes to spice up European ICT
Kroes is held in high regard in Brussels for her work as competition commissioner in the outgoing Commission. She would have liked to continue in that capacity, but it is known that Commission president José Manuel Barroso is not in favour of commissioners succeeding themselves.
The NRC calls it a step down for this experienced liberal politician. We believe it will be an interesting challenge nevertheless, since there remain many monopolies in member states in the telecom domain. Her experience in the competition regulation will no doubt be of great value in tackling the issues ahead successfully.
Prime minister of the Netherlands Jan Peter Balkenende told public broadcaster NOS:
“She will have a portfolio that’s important for the future of Europe; she will be dealing with e-commerce, digitalisation, mobile telephony, broadband, all kinds of things that have to do with the new technological reality”.
Kroes (68) belongs to the right-wing liberal party VVD, which is currently in the opposition. Two weeks ago she complained that “party politics” were standing in the way of her being nominated for a second term as commissioner.