Sources, Principles and Perspectives of Development of the Information Society in Europe

Karl Henry Haglund, Head of Unit ISPO, DGXIII, European Commission

Facing the Future

The Information Society is strongly on its way. Within an open world economy private companies, administrations and national economies have to continuously pursue productivity, competitiveness and high quality services. The renewal process requires a desire and ability for change.

Business and trade opportunities have greatly expanded as Internet and other information networks for common use have emerged. Information networks accelerate the shift of production, marketing and service activities to specific units and collaborators, such as subcontractors, cooperative clusters and distance workers. Information networks open new local, regional and global markets and new means to find business partners. Electronic commerce is here to stay.

Governments consider the role of information technology in reforming services offered by public administrations and agencies. The main objective is to take full advantage of public information resources and make them easily accessible to all citizens through public information networks. Fair and equal access to open networks is a prerequisite to ensure that the potential and benefits of free information flow are gained.

For individuals, whether in role of a consumer or a citizen, Information Society opportunities provide new challenges and benefits. It has to be ensured that everybody has the basic skills to use services offered by the networked Information Society. Electronic mail, information services, entertainment, electronic marketplaces and new services provided for citizens by administrations will be available.

The political, economic and social impacts of the Information Society are manifold and in many respects still unforeseen. Concrete actions to increase public awareness and understanding of the opportunities, benefits and possible risks is needed. Employment, quality of life of the citizens, environment, transport, healthcare, renewal of public administrations and service provision and opening fora for a stronger participation of the citizens in local decision making are examples of issues that require immediate attention and practical actions.

Local and regional authorities may lead the way to information society with high quality and confidence building examples of public services. Europeans may act as frontline change agents and play a visible role in awareness raising of the benefits information society may offer. This mission requires European level cooperation and supportive actions.

The European Commission has launched several processes, programmes, events and other actions to promote regions and cities to take benefit of the information society development. This work is done under umbrellas like local and regional, urban and rural. These actions are necessary in providing prerequisities for public administrations, local authorities and the private sector to make their moves.

The actions depend on every European country, region and city to make their own plans and carrying them out. The decisions are and will be theirs. Nobody is supposed to do it for them but cooperation and exchange of information, experience, lessons learnt and best practices help a lot.

The economies of the Central and East European countries have to face a multidimensional transition. In parallel they have to take the challenge of the market economy and manage the transition to new information technologies. Restructuring of economies should also strongly reflect the need to enter the European and global scenes.

Measures and Actions Taken by the European Union to Establish the Information Society in Europe

National and international measures and actions to develop and promote the Information Society may be grouped in three categories: (1) regulatory actions, (2) research & development, and (3) awareness raising and promotion.

Some Historical Milestones

The measures and actions taken by the European Union and in particular the initiatives of the European Commission can be presented in a nutshell as follows:

  1. The Jacques Delors White Paper

    2. The White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment (1993) strongly introduced the concept of Information Society as a set of opportunities with a wide scope of benefits for the Europeans in terms of employment and competitiveness. The rich European cultural heritage was especially pinpointed as a source for content production.

  2. The Bangemann Report and the Information Society Action Plan

    3. The high level group of European industrialists, under chairmanship of commissioner Martin Bangemann underlined the importance of telecommunications sector liberalisation, interoperable European network infrastructure and in addition identified a set of especially important application areas. Moreover, it was stated that the private sector, market players, are directly responsible for necessary investments.

    As a reaction to the Bangemann Report the European Commission produced an Information Society Action Plan to accelerate the realisation of the Information Society in Europe. As part of the Action Plan the European Information Society Forum (ISF) was established.

  3. Research and Development Programmes

    4. In many of the European Commission R&D Programmes issues related to Information Society development have played a key role. Especially programmes like ESPRIT, ACTS, INFO2000 and Telematics Application Programme have been essential. In addition, Information Society related issues have been strongly present in support through European structural and social funds.

  4. Regulatory actions

    5. The regulatory measures of the European Commission have been essential in setting a new competitive and liberalised European scene for ICT infrastructures and application and service provision.

Recent and Ongoing Measures and Actions

IST (INFORMATION SOCIETY TECHNOLOGIES)-A EUROPEAN RESEARCH PROGRAMME WITHIN THE 5TH FRAMEWORK

The strategic objective of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme is to realise the benefits of the Information Society for Europe both by accelerating its emergence and by ensuring that the needs of individuals and enterprises are met.

Taking into consideration the thorough preparation of the Programme, it can be assumed that the selected key actions reflect well the present European priority setting and understanding of Information Society development and promotion needs.

The IST Programme key actions are the following:

  1. Systems and services for the citizen

    2. The aim is to foster the creation of the next generation of user-friendly, dependable, cost-effective and interoperable general-interest services, meeting user demands for flexible access, for everybody, from anywhere and at any time. Specific work areas cover (1) professional health care and personal health systems, (2) providing support to citizens with special needs, including the disabled and the elderly, (3) administrations to provide on-line support for the democratic process, access to information and services, (4) environment, and (5) transport and tourism.

  2. New methods of work and electronic commerce

    3. The aim is to develop Information Society technologies to enable European workers and enterprises, in particular SMEs, to increase their competitiveness in the global marketplace whilst at the same time improving the quality of the individual's working life. Specific work areas cover (1) flexible, mobile and remote working methods and tools, (2) management systems for suppliers and consumers, and (3) information and network security and other confidence-building technologies.

  3. Multimedia content and tools

    4. The aim is to improve the functionality, usability and acceptability of future information products and services to enable linguistic and cultural diversity and contribute to the valorisation and exploitation of Europe's cultural patrimony, to stimulate creativity, and to enhance education and training systems for lifelong learning. Specific work areas cover (1) interactive electronic publishing and digital heritage and cultural content, (2) education and training, (3) human language technologies and (4) information access, filtering, analysis and handling.

  4. Essential technologies and infrastructures

    5. The aim is to promote excellence in the technologies which are crucial to the Information Society, to accelerate their implementation and broaden their fields of application. The work will address the convergence of information processing, communications and networking technologies and infrastructures. Specific work areas cover (1) technologies for and the management of information processing, communications and networks, including broadband, together with their implementation, interoperability and application, (2) technologies and engineering for software, systems and services, including high-quality statistics, (3) real-time and large-scale simulation and visualisation technologies, (4) mobile and personal communications and systems, including satellite-related systems and services, (5) interfaces making use of the various senses, (6) peripherals, sub-systems and microsystems, and (6) microelectronics.

    PROMISE (MULTIANNUAL COMMUNITY PROGRAMME TO STIMULATE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY IN EUROPE)

    The objectives of the PROMISE Programme (1998-2002) are the following:

  5. Awareness raising

    6. The aim is to increase public awareness and understanding of the potential impact of the Information Society and its new applications throughout Europe, to stimulate motivation, and ability to participate in the change to the Information Society.

  6. Optimisation of benefits

    7. The aim is to optimise the socio-economic benefits of the Information Society in Europe, by analysing its technical, economic, social and regulatory aspects, by appraising the challenges raised by the transition to the Information Society, inter alia as regards employment, and by promoting synergy and cooperation between European and national levels.

  7. Global visibility

    8. The aim is to enhance Europe's role and visibility within the global dimension of the Information Society, including exchange of information with third countries and collaboration in the preparation of demonstration actions, either bilaterally or in collaboration with international organisations.

    EXAMPLES OF OTHER RECENT PRIORITY SETTINGS AND ACTIONS

    Within the European Commission a large number of Information Society related intiatives have been launched. The following examples represent some of them, which especially reflect the present setting of priorities.

  8. The Information Society Forum of the European Commission

The Working Group structure of the Forum reflects the priorities set by the Forum:

The Forum membership has recently been extended to include members from the CEEC countries, which will further enhance the visibility and impact of the Forum.

The Forum has recently been active in formulating a Model Europe - European Vision for Global Governance, a New Social Contract, Sustainability and a Better World.

  1. Recent other Information Society related initiatives

The following examples reflect as well the recent setting of priorities:

In addition, electronic commerce and Internet regulation are issues that have earned a lot of interest and debate.

  1. Conclusions

Information Society development and promotion may take place on several levels: local, regional, national, European and global. The European Survey of Information Society (ESIS), a project led by the Information Society Promotion Office (ISPO) of the European Commission provides information about European national strategies, main projects and other Information Society related initiatives and actions. The ESIS Survey is presently in the process to be extended to CEEC countries and the Mediterranean countries. This material is accessible through the ISPO Web site (www.ispo.cec.be).

As a general rule it seems that the issues included in existing national strategies and programmes do not differ very much from each other. Naturally there are differencies in priority settings but agendas are still much alike. It seems that the list of "hot issues" is rather well known all over Europe.

However, the vital issue is the success in putting the strategies and programmes into action. These concrete action plans have to be prepared individually taking into account the local/regional/national circumstances. Information exchange, learning from best practices and experience achieved elsewhere are important and provide valuable working material for consideration, but do not necessary ensure success.

It is also worth to underline, that the process of having a regional or national Information Society strategy prepared serves well as a tool for producing overall regional development plans. The Information Society strategy work brings together not only technologies but also many other issues, such as social and societal, legal, economical and cultural aspects.

For countries preparing themselves to be active in the forthcoming enlargement of the EU, it is extremely important that they give Information Society issues a high priority and include them in their regional and national action plans. This work is necessary also in order to apply for funding for these initiatives.