Promoting the information society is vital to achieving long-term economic growth in Europe. The European Union is thus committed to opening up national communications markets and removing barriers to competition between the Member States.
The European Union supports the spread of new media and their inclusion in everyday life in the form of online government services or online learning. The internet is also to be further developed, and access to it extended to the broadest possible spectrum of the population.
In line with a proposal of the European Commission, the German Presidency aims to adopt a Roaming Regulation for a rapid and clear cut in the prices for the use of mobile phones abroad.
The project, which was discussed during the Finnish Presidency, is to be pursued vigorously and concluded in close co-ordination with the European Parliament under the German Presidency. The regulation of roaming charges would have directly positive effects for all mobile phone users and businesses (especially for small and medium-sized enterprises) in the European Union. It would also contribute towards the realisation of a common European economic area.
Link:
Europe's Information Society: http://europa.eu.int
The promotion of competition on the telecommunications markets and – building on this – of the information society is vital for sustainable economic growth in Europe. The European Union is therefore working to open up the national communications markets and to remove competition-restricting factors between the EU member states.
The European Commission has announced the presentation of the draft legislation revising the Community legal framework in the field of electronic communications (the “telecommunications review”) for the end of January 2007. This involves the following five directives:
The aim of the German Presidency in the revision of the legal framework for telecommunications is to achieve substantive results which are as far-reaching as possible.
The new legal framework will serve in the medium term as an important pointer for future European policy on information and communications technologies (ICT policy) and for a competition-oriented sector-specific regulatory policy. In addition to substantive issues of regulation, the debate under the German Presidency should primarily focus on the expansion of competition on the European communications markets. Any increase in bureaucracy should be countered.Substantively, the focus is on the simplification of procedures to define the regulated markets, the relationship between innovation and regulation, and the economic, legal and technical interlinkages of a more market-oriented frequency policy.
Further links:
Information Society Policies: http://europa.eu.int
eCommunications: http://europa.eu.int
CeBIT, the Hannover-based office and information technology trade fair, will serve as a backdrop for an informal ministerial meeting on 15 March 2007 at which current issues of ICT policy are to be discussed.
The title of the workshop will be “E-business solutions and standards for SMEs – state of play and perspectives”, and the current situation and the possibility of greater involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises in e-Business standardisation and the application of sophisticated digital business processes on the basis of harmonised standards will be discussed.The participants will be representatives of government, public administration, standardisation initiatives, SME organisations and businesses.
The European Digitisation Conference will be held in Berlin on 13 June 2007.
The conference is to follow and illuminate the process of digitisation of the media in the European Union. The aim is to work with high-level experts from EU member states to establish what possibilities exist to optimally implement the “digital dividend” for the media following the Regional Radiocommunications Conference (RRC-06).
In order to introduce technologies in which radio signals are used for object identification, known as Radio Frequency Identification Technologies (RFID), a conference of experts will be held in Berlin from 25 – 26 June 2007.
More information on the EU Council Presidency can be found on the website of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology: www.eu2007-wirtschaft.de
