Brussels, 20/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 20 December, the Telecoms Council continued its discussions on the draft regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions by adopting the progress report drawn up by the Cypriot Presidency. This is a subject that the member states consider a priority, as they stressed during the session, in order to benefit a truly efficient digital single market and strengthen confidence in electronic transactions. The Cypriot minister for communications, Efthemios Flourentzou, said that it was difficult and complicated, and if they wanted to reach their ambitious objectives they would need to make all the required effort in order to reach a correct regulatory framework. European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said that electronic signatures had brought a great deal at the national level but that the interoperability of systems was not a reality. While the delegations agree with the European Commission on the objectives fixed, numerous points - particularly of a technical nature - are still to be clarified and will have to be tackled under the Irish Presidency. The complexity of the subject - especially the impact on national legislations and the costs for achieving increased interoperability - raises many more questions still. A sufficient and harmonised level of security for electronic identification has, on the other hand, been requested by the member states. Following the Commission's example, most of the member states - except Germany - consider that a regulation will be an adequate legal instrument to implement the proposed measures, because it will lead to immediate application and will avoid problems of legal fragmentation. The framework proposed by the Commission aims to allow safe and continuous electronic interaction between businesses, private individuals and public authorities, and thus to improve the efficiency of public and private online electronic trade services in the EU. (IL/transl.fl)