Mr President, I should like to welcome Mrs Diamantopoulou here this afternoon. I know she will be speaking on behalf of Mr Liikanen. We are obviously disappointed that he is unable to be here. We understand the pressures on the time of Commissioners. We know that across the Commission there is great interest in this subject and, in particular, in a number of the areas for which Mrs Diamantopoulou is responsible, this issue will also be of crucial importance. The thrust behind our question – which is tabled at a timely point in the run-up to the Barcelona Summit – is that the need across the European Union to deliver access to information society services and to encourage the climate in which new services will develop has to be at the foundation of the Lisbon goal to deliver the most competitive knowledge-driven economy in the world. I emphasise 'knowledge-driven' because what we are talking about is the ability to achieve the widespread dissemination and availability of that knowledge. Part of the problem with this topic is the whole issue of jargon, and our question perhaps falls into that trap by talking about flat-rate Internet access. Perhaps colleagues will bear with me if I just set out why that is so critical. If the Internet is really to deliver its full potential as a global knowledge network, as an instantly accessible medium, then we have to encourage people to use it in such a way that they become detached from the feeling that, with a time-based connection, they have to hurry through what they are doing, that the facilities are not always there and available to them. That really is what this is all about. It is making that huge library of information and services available in such a way that people can have continuous access to it at a price they can afford. That is really at the heart of this question. We know that quite a lot has moved forward. I am pleased to have been a member of the teams in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, which have worked very hard with the Commission to push through directives on matters such as the unbundling of the local loop and the whole of the electronics communications package. We understand our role and responsibility here. The ultimate delivery of these services will have to come from the marketplace. It has already happened successfully in mobile telephony; it is already happening now in the marketplace as new investment is going in. However, we have to encourage investment in the backbone capacity that will carry these services and encourage people to develop the new services that will take advantage of that increased capacity. What we are talking about is moving from the relatively small knowledge pipelines that are coming into our houses and our businesses to much larger pipelines of knowledge. New services will be delivered with them. For example, a full-length movie will be delivered in seconds rather than hours, as it is at the moment. In conclusion, we look forward to hearing how the Commission is going to encourage that development of fast Internet access, how it is going to stimulate that provision across the Member States, what further action may be necessary, and what further support we can give to this crucial aim for the future of the European economy.

Political group: PPE-DE