Tag: digital agenda

The European Commission, member states and industry will invest more than €22 billion over the next seven years in innovation. The investment will primarily go to special sectors via five public-private partnerships called Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs).

EU ministers meeting in Brussels today (29 May) for the Competitiveness Council are set to clash over proposals to transform the European creative sector by reforming the continent’s fragmented copyright levy system. While France and Belgium want strong protection for authors, other countries favour a more liberal approach.

Angry Birds, Skype and Spotify may all be the product of European creativity, but if the old continent is ever going to challenge Silicon Valley for tech supremacy, it's going to have to do a lot better.

SPECIAL REPORT / The European Commission in June plans to publish a survey explaining why Europe’s information and communication technology (ICT) sector has too few women despite a projected deficit of 700,000 skilled workers by 2015.

A new digital industrial policy designed to create a company equivalent to Airbus is amongst seven new priority focuses launched yesterday (18 December ) by Neelie Kroes, the EU commissioner for the Digital Agenda.

As governments move towards the cloud, they need to be wary of the possibility for significant adverse consequences. National security might be compromised, government integrity eroded and even the safety of public officials threatened, writes Paul Rosenzweig.

Investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) are set to double by 2020 across the European Union, to match consumers' ever-growing hunger for online services. But this also comes at a cost for the environment in terms of electricity consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The European Commission is now openly asking itself whether the industry should be regulated.

We are entering a new phase in which China's powerful manufacturing industry is being threatened by lower wages in neighbouring countries and will have to gain its vital competitive edge from culture-based creativity and innovation, argues Philippe Kern. Much like in Europe.

The European Commission is set to launch a substantial review of rules governing personal documents with the aim of making electronic identities take off across the EU. But the proposal faces likely opposition from civil rights groups and member states where identity cards do not exist.

One of the key issues of the Digital Agenda initiative is the implementation of e-invoicing system. But there are still many challenges ahead for European businesses, writes Martin Hurley from Ricoh Europe.

Europe’s broadband internet coverage is close to 100%, but super-fast connections remain marginal and well behind the EU's official target despite the rhetoric surrounding the benefits of the digital economy.

The European Commission proposed yesterday (12 December) to open up the access and the re-use of public documents in the EU in order to make information held by public administrations more readily available and to spur economic growth.

Beneath the current gloomy economic perspective in Europe, there is underlying opportunity, says Internet guru Don Tapscott. But in order to unleash this, companies, individuals and governments must embrace the transforming power of digital innovation, he told EurActiv.

The EU's data security watchdog has warned of “serious implications” for privacy and data protection if a disproportionate approach is taken to ensure net neutrality like filtering network traffic on a grand scale.

G8 leaders face the difficult challenge of both maintaining freedom on the Internet and coming up with appropriate regulations on child protection and intellectual property rights, writes European Commissioner Neelie Kroes. 

Depending on where you live, your local phone company is developing technologies to check your blood pressure and sugar level, and will even remind you to take your medicine. 

The European Union and American health authorities have agreed to work more closely on a common approach for electronic health records and education programmes for medical professionals.

Despite low EU investment in research and development (R&D), Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes has rejected widespread recourse to state aid to narrow the gap with Europe's international competitors. 

The 'Digital Agenda' for the next five years published yesterday (19 May) by the European Commission does not go far enough in addressing key issues like copyright, cyber-security and broadband roll-out, writes Veni Markovski, president and chairman of the board at the Internet Society - Bulgaria, in an exclusive op-ed for EurActiv, calling on the EU institutions to consider the example set by Bulgaria in delivering high-speed Internet. 

"A Digital Single Market's economic impact would at least equal that created by the EU Internal Market for goods," writes the European Policy Centre (EPC) in an April paper.

The most senior official in the European Commission's health directorate will take charge of the new 'Digital Agenda' portfolio as part of a shakeup of top-ranking Brussels bureaucrats.