The EU is already the strongest player on the world's ICT market, but the Commission thinks that this strong position should be an incentive to boost ICT even further. "There are further markets to take abroad for Europe's ICT industry if we strengthen its competitiveness and remove barriers to trade in third countries," said Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, at the launch of a public consultation on 'an EU strategy for international co-operation on ICT', earlier this month.
In the questionnaire, the Commission asks all stakeholders, including industries, research community and consumer organisations, on regulatory issues, market access and trade issues such as regulatory co-operation for electronic communications, standards, intellectual property rights, access to the radio spectrum and RFID. It also makes enquiries concerning ICT research, such as research collaboration, infrastructure and global challenges.
The Commission examines global issues such as network and information security, spam, spyware, and malware, on internet governance and multilingualism, the next-generation internet protocol IPv6 and on the digital divide. Finally, it wants to learn about stakeholders' views on the tools for the creation of a better business environment for the EU's ICT industry, such as co-operatin agreements, dialogues, bilateral and regional assistance projects and the representation and promotion of European ICT, for example by installing ICT counsellors in Commission representations throughout the world.
Six of the world's top ten telecommunications providers and three of the top five equipment manufacturers are European companies. The EU boasts around 32% of the global market share in both industries, well ahead of the US (around 26%) and Japan (around 12%). In highly innovative fields such as embedded computing, micro- and nano-electronics, micro-systems and 'smart' integrated systems, Europe's global market share is even higher.
