Brussels, 25/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the Commission adopted a proposal for a programme aimed to encourage the development and use of European digital content on the Internet as well as promote linguistic diversity in the Information Society. The Commission points out that this initiative, which covers the period 2001-2005, is aimed at "stimulating the development and use of European digital content on the Internet". It aims at the "expansion of the information supply, linguistic and cultural adaptation of information products and removal of market barriers, by e.g. easing the process of accessing finance and trading basic multimedia rights".
Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, responsible for the Information Society, declared: "we should turn Europe's rich content base into a competitive advantage in the Information Society and ensure that European operators get a more prominent place on the Internet". The Commission's proposal comes within the context of the e-Europe initiative. It is based on the observation that, at the present time, an abnormally high proportion of the traffic on the Internet comes from the United States. In its press release, the Commission notes that "most web pages are in English and most of them are hosted in the United States". Erkki Liikanen insisted on the need to develop technology allowing as many languages as possible to be used on the Internet in order to stimulate investment of European companies in this technology. The programme proposed takes over from the two previous Community programmes, INFO2000 and MLIS (multilingual information society).