Brussels, 23/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - Fifteen European telecommunications companies have created a mobile and wireless communication technology platform (“eMobility Platform”) to pool their research and development efforts and to stimulate Europe's competitiveness in this field. The projects which will stem from this initiative will benefit from funding to the tune of two billion EUR, half of which will come from the partner companies and the other half from the European Commission, under the 7th framework programme for R&D. The partners are: Alcatel, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, France Telecom, H3G, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Siemens, STMicroelectronics, Thales, TIM, Telefónica Móviles and Vodafone. “If Europe is to keep its place on the world mobile and wireless communications market (…), we will have to develop a large-scale European approach to research and development, as for services and wireless applications, in the context of digital convergence. To this end, the “eMobility” platform will define and implement a comprehensive research agenda”, said Magnus Madfors, the platform's chairman.
The partners undertake to: create a strategy for joint collaboration in order to provide themselves with the appropriate products, establish the bases for convergence and interoperability between the various technical platforms and common standards in mobile communications. This platform will be Europe's response to the strong competition from the United States and Asia, in the view of the partners, who reiterate the importance of mobile and wireless communications not only in terms of making life easier for people, but also of economic productivity and jobs (10 million in 2010 compared to 4 million at the moment, they hope). Fabio Colasanti, director of DG “Information Society” at the Commission, welcomes this initiative, which is very much in line with the European Commission's policy, which seeks consensus with the industrial sector. “This is a good example and a positive response on the part of industry”, he said. According to Mr Colasanti, Europe must make serious efforts in terms of investment in R&D if it wants to stay in the game on a global scale. With Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea) spending more and more of their budget on research into new technologies, the percentage of European expenditure has grown from 1.82% in 1998 to 1.93% in 2002, which is not enough in relation to the Lisbon objectives. The Commission urges the Member States to make efforts in this area, pointing out that it had proposed to double the budget of the framework programme for research and development (2007-2013), Mr Colasanti said.