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e-Europe 2005 mid-term review upbeat but major challenges still lie ahead

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Published 24 February 2004 - Updated 29 January 2010
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Taking stock of progress made in most areas (e-government, broadband rollout), the e-Europe mid-term report draws attention on challenges posed by interoperability standards and multi-platform access.

The report makes an overall positive assessment of progress made in areas that are considered crucial to the development of the information society.

With numbers of connections doubling over the past year,broadbandrollout and competition is highlighted as one of them. It now appears that the next challenge facing broadband in the coming years is to provide quality content over the networks in order to stimulate demand.

E-governmentis cited as the second area where most progress was made since the launch of the action plan. However, a general slowdown in the growth of e-government services was recently highlighted in a report (see

EurActiv, 29 January 2004).

In order to keep up the momentum, the Commission identified key challenges for the coming years, all of which are closely linked and mutually reinforcing:

  • Interoperability: Developing standards that allow content to be exchanged seamlessly over different appliances such as computers and third generation mobile phones (3G) now appears to be the next challenge. The Commission recently launched an open forum to gathers the views of various businesses, governments and consumers' organisations on how best to develop those standards (seeEurActiv, 10 February 2004).
  • Focus on the end user and security: The attention here could focus on actions to stimulate the demand for online services by increasing end-user value and functionality of public and private services. The perceived lack of trust among the general public is to be addressed by reinforcing the security of the networks, including that of payment services that support e-business.
  • Content: To further drive demand, quality content is to be made available to customers over a variety of appliances (seeEurActiv 19 February 2004).
  • Prices and access: To avoid a digital divide in the information society, the costs of access to modern communication technologies are to be further pushed down. The timely implementation of the new regulatory framework by the Member States is at the core of the Commission strategy (seeEurActiv, 4 February 2004). The diversity of appliances over which to access those services stands out as one of the most promising ways to bridge this divide. Digital TV for instance is now commonly referred to as a 'platform' that could have a much higher penetration rate among the wider population than, for example computers, for which some sort of training is needed.

 

Positions: 

Commissioner for Enterprise and Information SocietyErikki Liikanennoted the information society in the EU had started to take root but that it now needed to "shift up a gear" in order to drive further growth.

The European ICT associationEICTAidentifies interoperability between different broadband access technologies a s crucial if the objectives of provision of public information and avoiding the digital divide are to be achieved. This includes interoperability between content and user appliances as much as between the different types of appliances (computers, TV, Personal Digital Assistants and phones) within a particular service or application. However, EICTA says the content exchanged over those multiple devices should be protected Digital Rights Managements systems that secure rightsholders' intellectual property rights.

In an position paper,Eurochamberstakes note that e-business has taken up since the action plan was launched and considers the plan was effective in increasing connectivity and rollout of broadband networks. However, considering the general improvement of the digital economy, it questions whether it is right to give full credit to the plan for the increased take-up. The association says increased attention should be paid to securing the networks from spammers and viruses that undermine consumer confidence in online services. E-government is identified by Eurochambers as another top priority especially as regards improving services to businesses (such as e-procurement).

 

Next steps: 
  • EU ministers will be discussing the Commission's mid-term review of the e-Europe 2005 Action Plan at the Telecoms Council on 8 March.
  • EU heads of state and government will look at possible further actions to boost the EU information society at the European Spring Summit on 25-26 March.
  • The 25 current and future EU Member States have until June 2004 to send their contributions to the Commission on how best to revise the action plan.

 

Background: 

The e-Europe 2005 Action Plan was endorsed in 2002 by EU heads of States and governments at the Seville European Council. The action plan features a series of objectives relating mainly to the provision of e-government, e-learning, e-health and e-business services, and relying on cheaper and faster Internet access for all (for a complete overview of the e-Europe 2005 Action Plan, see our LinksDossier:

e-Europe - An information society for all).

The Commission's mid-term review presented here gives an overview of the concrete developments of the action plan. The assessment was made after wide public consultations were held with EU business, public authorities and civil society organisations.

 

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