Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-14-Speech-2-012"
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"en.20060314.5.2-012"2
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".
Mr President, I shall firstly express my thanks to Parliament and particularly to its rapporteur, Mr Paasilinna, for his very detailed report. He has been working very closely with the other rapporteurs and has gathered their opinions. To all of them I express my thanks.
I agree with you on the crucial importance of the Internet for an economy based on information. That is why the EU also played an active role in brokering the agreement on the progressive internationalisation of Internet governance at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last year. In my view, that is the best approach to Internet governance. The Commission, together with Parliament, will proceed by organising a forum later this year.
I am also stepping up monitoring activities in the field of media pluralism and will shortly publish a working paper on that issue. The working paper is going to be a stock-taking exercise to capture the wide range of different circumstances across the Member States, but at the same time – and I keep reiterating this – my views on ownership and media pluralism have not changed. Ownership issues are a matter for Member States: they must take their responsibilities and exercise them in an effective manner in line with the subsidiarity principle. That is why the Commission simply supports the Member States; it does not dictate to them in this important area of national life.
Having said that, I promised you that I would follow this up and cooperate with you in that regard. I will shortly be proposing measures to that effect to this House.
Concerning your call to speed up the e-inclusion initiative – which is planned for 2008 – I urge you not just to see the date of 2008, because 2008 is the time when we will have reached our objective. In order to reach it, we are preparing things now. So I have spoken with the forthcoming EU Presidencies of Finland, Germany and Portugal, and practical actions will be built up until we reach the e-inclusion initiative in 2008.
Since the publication of the i-2010 action plan, we have significantly raised awareness of ICT issues. We have started to make progress on key objectives, with the adoption of several proposals, with other proposals in the pipeline and with initiatives that were not inscribed in the i-2010 initiative. The flexibility of the action plan allows us to add initiatives whenever necessary. The latest one I took involves consultation on RFIDs, which bring together economic necessity and the necessity to protect the privacy of our citizens.
However, achievement of our ambitious objective requires adequate financial resources. As soon as an interinstitutional agreement on the Financial Perspective is reached, we need to see important decisions and adjustments named in the Seventh Framework Programme and in the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme. I therefore urge you to ensure that those two programmes are granted the basic necessary financial resources in order to support ICT as a driver for competitiveness and growth. I am very glad to see that this is a shared opinion and goal not only in this House but also in the three institutions, and that is a guarantee of success.
It is very encouraging to see that Parliament shares the Commission’s main concerns and the policy priorities for the information society over the next five years. As the various committees and rapporteurs have shown, it is very difficult to predict today how the information society of tomorrow will look, and that is why we opted for a broad and ambitious strategic framework, instead of a detailed action plan, because this strategic framework allows for review and adjustments in response to emerging challenges. The i-2010 framework thus seeks to provide a future-proof policy framework.
I am very pleased to note that Parliament and the Commission share a position on the key elements of i-2010: commitments to make ICT legislation forward-looking and responsive to the changes brought about by converging. So, it must be technologically neutral and supportive of competition, and at the same time Member States must implement fully the existing regulatory framework which, unfortunately, is not always the case, but you know that I am fighting to get that done.
We see a similar need for the approach to spectrum management which can respond to rapid technological developments and changes in demand and which is supported by regulators, operators and others involved. Here we will have a lot of work in the next few months.
Our shared priorities also include support for the EU’s creation and distribution of European content, the protection of intellectual property, the promotion of security and the protection of users against harmful content. The Commission and Parliament are also of one mind when it comes to urging Member States and businesses to invest more into ICT research, and we see the same need for ensuring appropriate financial resources for ICT in FP7 and CIP.
We also agree on the need to promote and protect citizens’ rights in the information society and that is why we need to raise the awareness of citizens on how their rights, freedom of expression, privacy, personal data protection and right to receive or communicate information can be exercised in the information society.
Together with Parliament I would urge the Member States to use their national reform plans in order to address their own ICT priorities, to improve their public services, such as e-government initiatives, where I see a lot of progress in the move to invest more in the exploitation of ICT in public-sector services.
Like Parliament, I am worried about the digital divide. We have to ensure that everyone can participate; not only people who live in cities; not only people who have a certain level of education; not only young people. This is a very strong goal and an opportunity to be seized. We will work together on steps to bridge this digital divide.
When I refer to ‘digital divide’, I also mean the promotion of digital literacy for all, which leads me to the participation of women in all ICT-related fields of academia and business. There is good news: our statistics show that gender is no longer the main factor in the digital divide; that factor is diminishing very rapidly. I am encouraged by this, but that does not mean that we should not do anything to solve the residual problem. We have to work together and continue our efforts to promote greater gender balance in ICT-related fields such as science. In many governments, initiatives are being taken to that end."@en1
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