Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party , I wish also to thank Mrs Read for a brilliant report which we are able fully to support. This is a very important area we are here moving into, as Mrs Read’s report also clearly shows. Modern society is completely dependent upon our having efficient procedures, well-educated populations, proper security and people who are able to understand how to use the services on offer. I think that, as previously mentioned in connection with Mr van Velzen’s report, we must, in monitoring progress, also look at what things cost and how cheaply they can be made. There are no doubt public sector services within, for example, the spheres of tax and of company registration where it is not perhaps sensible to demand payment, in so far as people themselves answer the questions by using the Internet and keying in their own data. In that way, we should save on the number of public employees, of whom we shall have a shortage in the period ahead of us. In Denmark, we have benefited a lot precisely out of getting people to, for example, key in their own tax data using the Internet or push-button telephones. It does not cost a penny, and it saves the public sector enormous resources in terms of staff. It would also be worthwhile monitoring how we deal with the wireless sector. What results would we achieve, and what distribution would we have? In particular, what price are we to pay? In my country, the standard connection to private homes is, in any case, two megabits. In Japan, it is eight megabits and, insofar as I have understood correctly, at a very much lower price than we pay. We must ask ourselves how we can ensure that the prices we pay, whether in relation to private households or businesses, are not so high as to prevent us from being competitive in relation to the rest of the world. This aspect of the monitoring is also, therefore, extremely important. Another thing we must also monitor is the use of the teaching material being developed. If we look at use of the Internet and computers today, the development of hardware and high-speed networks may be reasons for their fairly widespread use. A still more significant development is, however, the highly teaching-oriented software systems that have come onto the scene. It is therefore worthwhile tracing the development whereby, for example, elderly people can very easily make use of these opportunities. Perhaps we should also look for a moment at the early part of children’s development and consider the ways in which we monitor how quickly they find their feet. I come from a small language area and am therefore able to state that getting computers used depends to a certain extent upon how rapidly our children in the small language areas learn to speak English. That is because all instruction etc. in computing first takes place in English. A lot of material is not translated into the small languages, but it is necessary to become familiar with it if there is to be early use of computers and a situation achieved in which the new teaching methods are used in the education system, enabling much more to be learned much faster than has been the case in the past. In conclusion, I want finally to say how impressive it is that, within the areas concerned, we have seen quite a few countries combine in making large joint purchases in order to bring the prices down. This is something with which we are familiar from the defence area, and it would also be only natural if we were to benefit from such advantages within the administrative areas. This state of affairs must no doubt also be part of what the monitoring addresses. I wish once again to thank Mrs Read for a brilliant report and for her constructive cooperation, and I wish to thank Commissioner Liikanen for the support he has given to Parliament.

Political group: PPE-DE