Brussels, 22/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The EU Council of Telecommunications Ministers met on Monday afternoon for a brief session for which few decision are expected, except for the adoption of a Resolution on public web-site access for the disabled. Ministers will also attempt to obtain some general guidelines on the draft amendments of decisions on the electronic exchange of data between administrations and new proposals on Trans-European telecommunications networks TETN. The Council will be informed by the Spanish Presidency on the conclusions reached at the Barcelona Summit on the information society. It will also be informed by the Commission on the recent developments involving international internet management.
During the session on 15-16 October, the European Commission presented the "Telecom" Council with a communication that stresses the need to improve web-site access to the disabled, as part of the e-EUROPE 2002 action programme. This is expected to see the adoption of a Resolution recommending appropriate encoding during web-site design and contents for the internet, as well as the application of certain rules on formatting and structuring during web-page design.
While awaiting the decision of Parliament, the Council is expected to obtain general guidelines on the two draft decisions defining the overall guidelines and the projects of general interest in Trans-European networks for the interchange of data between administrations (IDA) and the overall action and measures aimed to ensure effective inter-operability of the IDA networks and access to them. The Council could call on the Presidency to informally transmit this guideline to Parliament in order to reach an agreement between the institutions during the first reading. The two proposals aim to amend the decisions adopted in 1999 which set funding of EUR 38.5 million and EUR 33.1 million respectively for carrying out corresponding action. Three types of amendments are planned: the adoption of the committee procedure and extension of the IDAII in some non-EU countries; the introduction of a financial reference for the 2002-2004 period with the granting of EUR 39.8 million and EUR 34.2 million for the two actions and the monitoring of new initiatives, such as the e-Europe action plan.
Parliament would also like to see the Council adopt a general guideline on an amendment to the annex to the decision on guidelines for Trans-European telecommunications networks. It could also mandate the Presidency to informally transmit this guideline to the Parliament in order to obtain an agreement in its first reading. According to European Union sources; amendments proposed by the Commission are largely acceptable to the Council. They focus on the Trans-European dimension of the action, strategic priorities of the e-Europe action plan, the reduction of domains, the deployment of public services and the interconnection and inter-operability of networks.
The Council will be informed by the Spanish Presidency of the Barcelona Summit conclusions follow-up on the information society and the Europe action plan. It will proceed to an exchange of views on: broad band infrastructure; variety of platforms for maximising access; network security; the availability of on-line services; connection issues; encouraging European digital content. The European Council of Barcelona called on the Commission to, "establish a global e-2005 action plan, that will be presented at the European Council of Seville, which will focus on, "network and information security, on-line administration, on-line learning, on-line health services (e-Health) and E-commerce".
The Commission will inform the Council of recent developments in the situation involving the international management of internet and the possible reforms to the governance society ICANN (internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and possibly proceed to an exchange of view on the subject.