Brussels, 27/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is due, on Tuesday 3 March, to adopt a communication making recommendations to member states on how to improve the access of rural areas to information and communication technologies (ICT). This report comes at just the right time since, as part of the European economic recovery plan, the European Commission has proposed devoting €833 million in rural development funding to develop broadband internet in rural areas.
In the text of the communication, the Commission repeats the aim of “broadband for all” by 2010 and notes that 30% of the EU's rural population does not have access to broadband. The Commission states that, in 2008, 41.7% of people living in thinly populated areas had never used the internet, compared with 27.4% in densely populated areas. In some EU member states, around half the population had never used a computer (for example in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Romania and Malta). In December 2007, broadband technology (DSL) covered only 70% of the rural population of the EU, with very low coverage in Slovakia (39%), Poland (43%), Greece (50%) and Latvia (65%) as well as in Bulgaria and Romania. The Commission recommends that member states make better use of available Community funding (rural development, structural measures, research) for broadband internet so as to “boost the economic and social life in rural areas”. Much remains to be done to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas. (L.C./transl.rt)