Brussels, 14/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the European Commission adopted a Communication for the Stockholm European Council, which assesses the impact and sets out future priorities for the eEUROPE 2002 initiative. The document welcomes the significant advances in information society in Europe, where close to one third of the population and most schools are now connected. It nevertheless deplores a insufficient use of electronic commerce and underlines certain concerns as to the security of users, taken onboard by the programme to fight against cybercrime, and the protection of data. The Communication encourages the governments to improve their interactive services for citizens. Commissioner Erkki Liikanen responsible for information society, stated on this occasion that much progress has been achieved since Lisbon. 2000 was the year of a true breakthrough by the Internet in Europe, but he dampened his statements by adding: I hope that in 2001, all the industrial sectors will fully take on all the potential of the Internet. The lifting of the remaining barriers must be the absolute priority.
The comparative study confirms the rapid growth of the rate of Internet penetration, mainly due to the fall of access prices. The number of households in the EU connected rose 55% between March and October 2000. Europe now has nearly as many surfers as the United States. The increase in the use of the Internet was even faster in schools, of which 80% are now connected for educational purposes. European schools have, on average, one computer connected to the Internet for 22 students. As a comparison, the figure is higher than 30 students in certain States (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Germany, Spain, Belgium) and below 10 in others (Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark), or close to 2 in Finland. Another sector, teleworking, which is used by 5.6% of European workers, while it reaches 17.6% in Denmark. More generally, the study shows that the use of the Internet remains mainly passive (search for documents and downloading) and underlines that the Internet's potential is not yet fully used in terms of electronic commerce and other interactive services. It deplores the fact that less than 5% of Internet users regularly use on-line commerce and only 10% interact with their government. If 56% of local authorities have a website, only 28% have electronic official documents and 8% allow e-mail answers. The European Commission calls for greater political will from the national authorities to implement e-government.
In the second section of the report, the Commission calls on the Member States to rapidly adopt the new regulatory framework on electronic communications and encourages them to establish high speed networks (ASDL). Moreover, it proposes a series of priority measures:
In teaching (eLearning), achieve a new target of one computer for five students and increase the training of teachers;
Make on line administration (eGovernment) a reality, by making basic services available, such as tax declarations, or vehicle registrations;
Improve internet security, by establishing a early warning system ensuring an exchange of information between Member States concerning security problems;
Accelerate the transposition of the legal framework on online commerce (eCommerce);
Maintain the leadership of Europe in mobile communications, by implementing the version 6 of the Internet protocol (Ipv6) to support the growing number of requests, and to adopt the regulatory framework for the policy in terms of radio frequency spectra;
Ensure the disadvantages people are not left behind (digital divide), by moving forward in the completion of the social inclusion process foreseen at the Nice Summit.