Brussels, 10/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 6 June, the Telecommunications Council took note of four progress reports. The first progress report relates to the draft regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions. Irish Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte was pleased that progress had been made on many key principles in this “really very complex dossier”. He said that the question of trust in electronic transactions is significant if they wanted to maximise the opportunities provided by the digital economy. The framework proposed by the Commission aims to enable secure and seamless electronic interactions between businesses, citizens and public authorities, thereby contributing to improving public and private online electronic services in the EU.
The second report involves the draft directive on public sector organisation website access. It seeks to harmonise member states' rules on public sector internet websites in an effort to prevent the exclusion of certain categories of people, said Rabbitte. He added that this was an issue that was still a priority and that work was continuing. A report is currently being prepared on the subject. Although member states support the objective sought, there are still doubts about added value (the majority of member states have already developed initiatives in this field), powers delegated to the Commission, reporting obligations (regarded as too constricting for some of them) and even the costs that this initiative may generate.
The third progress report involves digital infrastructure and services (two draft regulations: one on approaches to Trans-European Networks for communications and the other on measures for reducing the cost of broadband communication network implementation). With regard to Trans-European Networks, given the decision of the February European Council to drastically reduce the proposed budget (€1 billion instead of the required €9.2 billion), an amended proposal was submitted on 28 May last by the Commission. This seeks to concentrate available resources on one of the two key objectives planned, namely support for Trans-European digital services, particularly interoperable service platforms. The number of services that could receive funding in the CEF will also be reduced. (IL)