Brussels, 25/08/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Kangaroo Club will hold its annual meeting in Brussels on 18 and 19 September on "Barriers in Cyberspace", the brakes to the development of the multimedia, electronic commerce and the Internet.
In the letter of invitation, its president, Karl von Wogau MEP (CDU member) stipulates that "the European Union needs an overall strategy with better policies for the information society, for a European research area, for modernising the European social model". The conference's programme is split into four sessions: barriers for consumers, practical barriers, regulatory barriers, and barriers to trade in cyberspace.
European Commissioners David Byrne, Mario Monti and Erkki Liikanen responsible respectively for consumer protection, the information society and competition, will participate in the conference, in which Bernard Vergnes, Chairman of Microsoft Europe, will turn to the problem of the shortage of information technology skills in Europe. Erkki Ormala, Director for technology policy, Nokia, and Anne Lambert, Deputy Director General from OFTEL, the British regulatory authority, will exchange views on the impact of regulations on the development of the information society. As for Karl von Wogau, he will raise the question as to whether there is an internal market in Cyberspace. The conference moderator will be Christopher Scott-Wilson, Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Kangaroo Club (Kangaroogroop@village.uunet.be).