The Commercial Side One of the main obstacles to the progress of the Internet and the telecommunications in the EU has its basis in the monopolistic rights owned in many countries of the EU by public companies. These PTTs have arbitrarily boosted their fares, forgetting about any social interest that you will assume in a state-owned company. This market distortion will end in 1998. While an open market arrives to Europe, many cities in North America enjoy free local calls, and the European consumer must stand abusive rates. This point has a greater importance when dealing with PwD. PwD have an average income well below national averages, and therefore the affordability of telecommunications is a key issue.
Consideration deserves the lack of flexibility of our labor markets.
It is difficult to imagine that a company is eager to hire someone from a different country to do some teleworking. The European Commission has launched several directives seeking for some uniformity, and many international programs have taken place under the umbrella of the European Commission, the European Social Fund and alike. However, I feel that the EU has still a long way to go in that direction, and that this lack of flexibility is in the roots of our high unemployment rates. There is a history of small and medium size companies which only objective was the local markets. Assistive Technology, Telecommunications, etc.