Brussels, 12/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - As part of his tour of EU member states, the Vice President of the European Commission, Andrus Ansip, responsible for the Digital Single Market Strategy travelled to Prague on Monday 12 October, to discuss how the Czech Republic and the European Union could work together to take full advantage of the digital opportunities in the country.
During the day, Ansip was expected to meet the Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, as well as Vice-Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, responsible for Finance, and Vice-Prime Minister Pavel Bìlobrádek, responsible for Science, Research and Innovation. He will also participate in a presentation of joint digital projects by Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovakian representatives. In the morning Vice-President Ansip had exchanges with the EU Committee of the Senate and the Economic Committee of the Chamber of Deputies on the Commission's Strategy for a Digital Single Market. He also participated in a roundtable with stakeholders, hosted by State Secretary for EU Affairs Tomáš Prouza. They discussed, more specifically, new e-commerce, telecoms and copyright rules. Speaking on Twitter, Ansip was delighted that that they had had “an excellent discussion with the Czech stakeholders on the digital single market. Czech SMEs leading in cross-border trade in EU”.
On 15 September, Ansip met representatives from the Belgian government in Brussels (see EUROPE 11390) and on 28-29 September in Berlin he met members of the German government (see EUROPE 11399) to discuss the Commission's digital strategy, presented on 6 May (see EUROPE 11309) and see whether these member states are on the right track for attaining the objectives that had been set out. (Original version in French by Isabelle Lamberty)