Brussels, 29/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - In the conclusions it adopted on Tuesday 28 June, the European Council calls for swift and decisive progress to be made in many fields related to the digital economy, starting with the portability of services and e-commerce.
Few changes were made to the provisional version we reported on earlier in the month (see EUROPE 11579). The member states are first and foremost calling for progress to be faster on the regulation on the cross-border portability of services. The ministers reached an agreement at the most recent 'Competitiveness' Council in May of this year (see EUROPE 11557). The European Parliament is set to reach its position in the autumn, according to a European source, who hopes to see an agreement in trialogue by the end of the year.
This also applies the removal of obstacles to e-commerce and question of geo-blocking, the regulation on the cross-border parcel delivery services, VAT modernisation, the action plan for Internet administration, copyright reform and the audiovisual regulatory framework and the passport service.
Although welcomed by most member states, the last of these projects is of particular concern to Germany and, to a lesser extent, Austria, Greece and France, which fear an imbalanced proposal. The Commission is to table its draft by the end of the year.
In one major change, the member states decided to describe the deepening of the single market as an “instrument” to generate employment, whereas the provisional version of the text had described such a deepening as a “prerequisite” for employment, which could be interpreted as playing down the importance of the single market. “It's just a nuance”, said one diplomatic source, who sees it as an adjustment on the basis of the “agreed language”. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)