Brussels, 27/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted the recommendation for the second reading on the Council's common position ahead of the adoption of the decision of the Parliament and Council establishing a multi-annual community programme (eContentPlus) aiming to make European digital content more accessible, useable and exploitable. The recommendation was adopted with just one amendment. Following the recommendations of its rapporteur, Austrian Christian Democrat Paul Rübig, the plenary calls on the Council to set the financial envelope for the programme for the period 2005/2008 at 149 million EUR. In its common position, which was adopted at the Telecommunications Council of 10 June 2004, the Council set the total at 135 million EUR; however, the Parliament feels that this is too great a reduction from the Commission's initial proposal of 163 million EUR, which will not allow the programme to be properly funded. The amendment, which was the result of a compromise between the rapporteur and the Dutch Presidency in the second half of last year, is likely to be acceptable to the Council. The Commission welcomed the EP's vote, which “will open the door to the swift adoption of the programme”.
eContentPlus will pick up where the last programme, eContent, which started in January 2001 and ran for four years, left off. The objective is better to exploit the potential of digital content in Europe. This can be done by both making the best of technology to provide access for all to information and knowledge, and by improving investment conditions available to European companies active in the sector. The programme will focus in particular on the market share for digital content where fragmentation is the most marked and where market forces alone have not as yet been able to stimulate growth. Three fields are targeted: spatial (or geographical) data, educational material and cultural content. It is worth noting that eContentPlus comes as part of a raft of measures designed to create conditions conducive to innovation and creativity in the convergent content market, such as the programme “MediaPlus” and the revision of the “Television Without Borders” directive, planned for this year. The programme will thus make a contribution to the Lisbon Strategy and reinforce European competitiveness in the knowledge-based economy. Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is in charge of the information society and audiovisuals portfolios, stressed the value of the programme, which will not only facilitate the production and distribution of European on-line content, thus stimulating innovation and creativity, but will also help to safeguard Europe's cultural and linguistic identities and boost the exchange between Europeans. “Today's vote enabled the Parliament to reach a budget which is considerably higher than that of the previous programme”, she said.