A4-0208/97

Resolution on the communications from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on 'The Information Society: From Corfu To Dublin, The new emerging priorities' and 'The Implications of the Information Society for European Union Policies - Preparing the next steps' (COM(96)0395 - C4-0521/96) and 'Europe at the Forefront of the Global Information Society: Rolling Action Plan' (COM(96)0607 - C4-0648/96)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions (COM(96)0395 - C4-0521/96),

- having regard to the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions (COM(96)0607 - C4-0648/96),

- having regard to the communication from the Commission, 'Learning in the information society - Action plan for a European education initiative' (COM(96)0471),

- having regard to its resolution of 11 March 1997 on the Commission's Green Paper on Living and Working in the Information Society: People First (COM(96)0389 - C4-0522/96) ((Minutes of that Sitting, Part II, Item 5.)),

- having regard to its resolution of 13 March 1997 on the information society, culture and education ((Minutes of that Sitting, Part II, Item 5.)),

- having regard to its resolution of 12 June 1997 on the development and application of new information technologies (ICT) in the next decade ((Minutes of that Sitting, Part II, Item 19.)),

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the opinions of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media (A4- 0208/97),

A. whereas information and communications technologies (ICT) are of very great importance to Europe because of their catalytic function in relation to new businesses and industries, because they can do much to render Europe more competitive with other parts of the world and because they occupy a significant position in the European economy as a whole,

B. concerned that, despite the rapid growth of the world ICT market, European producers are losing market share to the USA and Japan, and that ICT producers in the USA achieved five times the growth rate of their European counterparts between 1990 and 1995, because of persistently inadequate harmonization of regulation, inadequate research and product development efforts and the absence of a large homogeneous market, leading to significantly poorer efficiency and a longer time-to-market for European enterprises, and drawing attention to the significance of the market in Eastern Europe and the importance of early integration of the candidates for accession into the Union's regulatory process,

C. whereas, of the twenty largest software houses in the world, only two are based in Europe, so that Europe's competitive position on the important software development market may be described as extremely weak, partly due to the lack of new enterprises and because of protectionism,

D. whereas the market for public network switching equipment is the only one on which Europe is a market leader, while other countries have taken the lead in the market for private networks, which is of strategic importance for the development of the information society,

E. whereas, in order for European enterprises to compete more effectively on world markets, the European Union must pursue a policy to create the right preconditions by eliminating obstructive legislation and adopting incentives,

F. whereas, when using ICT, distances and language barriers no longer hamper the dissemination and communication of information and can therefore have a positive impact on regional economic and social conditions,

G. regretting that discrepancies between Member States, for example as regards regulation and telecommunications and education policy, have contributed to the highly fragmented character of European ICT policy,

H. whereas loss of tax revenue will be a serious problem for national governments because such ICT as the Internet and satellite communications, as well as globalization, make it possible for enterprises in the information society in large measure to operate establishments on a decentralized and geographically dispersed model,

I. whereas teleworking leads to organizations operating in untraditional ways, which will mean that different arrangements need to be made with regard to the rights and obligations of employees and employers,

J. whereas, because of the spread of teleworking, precise rules must be laid down to safeguard the individual and collective rights of workers with regard to health at work and social protection,

K. whereas the accumulation of know-how, capital and information networks could result in new power structures and a transfer of power from national governments, where it is currently concentrated, to other sectors,

1. Regards the Rolling Action Plan and the Commission's communication 'From Corfu to Dublin, The New Priorities' as valuable contributions to the debate on the future of the European Union and its Member States in the information society, as it presents opportunities for the consultative, decision-making and legislative bodies and institutions to participate proactively in this process;

2. Welcomes particularly the proposed measures designed to improve legal certainty and access to public services and calls on the Commission to put these rapidly and fully into effect;

3. Welcomes the Commission's continuing attempts to co-ordinate policy measures in the area of the Information Society, but insists that social and cultural concerns be fully integrated in its overall approach and reiterates the demand contained in Article 128 (4) of the EC Treaty which states that the Community shall take cultural aspects into account under other provisions of the Treaty, and reminds the Commission that this includes actions in the area of the Information Society, in particular awareness of cultural and linguistic diversity;

4. Welcomes the efforts which the Commission has made since the 1994 action plan 'Europe's way to the information society' to establish a free telecommunications market, but calls on the Commission and Council to lose no time in dealing with unfinished business such as universal service and encrypted services and to do everything in their power to complete the decision-making on them as soon as possible, preferably by 1 January 1998;

5. Affirms the need to reduce the divide concerning access to the new technologies, and believes this reduction should be a central and horizontal objective of the EU's action plan for the information society;

6. Calls on the Commission and Council to assign high priority to the many convergence aspects of the information society, as there is increasingly no longer any legal basis for the differences in telecommunications, electronic information services and broadcasting (especially public) between the Member States, which hinder cross-border activities and integration; refers, therefore, also to its resolutions on the establishment of a European regulatory authority for telecommunications; and calls on the Commission to continue its reflections on the setting up of such a European regulatory authority; believes that special attention should also be devoted to this aspect in the enlargement negotiations;

7. Considers that, in order to pursue a vigorous policy on ICT, it is necessary to attain greater integration among the four fields referred to in the Rolling Action Plan and the policies of the Member States by means of coordination among the various Community policies, instruments and financing schemes;

8. Calls on the Commission and Council to improve the coordination of national regulatory bodies with regard to the information society, to define the role of these bodies clearly and establish a broadband network among them which can be used to exchange information electronically on a large scale so as to avoid duplication of efforts and overlapping, and proposes that the existing European test centres be expanded so that enterprises can test their ICT-related products or services there using the latest systems;

9. Considers that, now that the European Union has missed the opportunity to set up a worldwide communications infrastructure, it should concentrate on the second generation of satellites in order to maintain a strong position and secure its future in the information society, and with this in mind welcomes the communication in the Rolling Action Plan concerning the development of applications of space-related activities in the European Union in the field of telecommunications;

10. Considers that the European Union institutions should set an example in the democratic and multilingual development of the information society and should accordingly play a pioneering role in using ICT in their everyday work and in training, and that in order to achieve this, inter alia, a communication and information strategy should be drawn up within the institutions comprising the whole field of internal and external communication and including arrangements to afford access to the institutions for members of the public and organizations;

11. Stresses that the development of the information society must ensure that cultural and linguistic diversity is safeguarded within the European Union with no form of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion or social condition being maintained;

12. Welcomes the Commission's Action Plan on Education and the Information Society, but stresses that education must not be reduced to employability; and insists that the introduction of new technologies in schools must be implemented in such a way as to reduce inequalities, and address the needs of disadvantaged groups;

13. Is gratified that the education programmes proposed by the Commission in the Rolling Action Plan are mainly targeted at young people and the working population, but calls on the Commission to make use of different methods of teaching in the measures it has announced, based on lifelong learning using ICT and taking account of declining birth-rates and the considerable aging of the population of Europe, since, in the information society, lifelong education is a key factor in Europe's competitive position, and in this connection draws attention to the possibilities afforded by Articles 127 and 128 of the EC Treaty;

14. Calls on the Commission to provide incentives for investment in the infrastructure of the information society and to promote easy-access information services by permitting access to databases via the Internet, promote market initiatives for pan-European information services and promote information service programmes run by national Member States;

15. Proposes linking all primary and secondary schools by means of a broadband network with, at the minimum, a programme for pupils and a programme to instruct teachers in the use of ICT and assist the introduction of the network, incorporating incentives in the career development of teachers relating to its use, and making this a specific element in the 'Essen' procedure; considers it important, furthermore, that the number of teachers should not be reduced as a result of the use of ICT, as skilled teachers will remain indispensable;

16. Notes the importance of media education, including learning how to interpret, analyse and use information, given the abundance of information which is available via new technologies;

17. Urges the Member States to link universities and higher and senior vocational education institutions even more closely by means of a broadband satellite channel to exchange and encourage innovative applications of ICT;

18. Calls on the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), in the context of its Medium-Term Priorities (1997-2000), to help determine the form taken by changes in training and particularly encourage instructors and teachers to innovate;

19. Urges the Member States to concern themselves more systematically with the electronic use of art and culture (picture, text, speech and translation technology), as Europe possesses a wealth of cultural diversity and the modern information and tourism industries could base new information products and services on it which would exert a worldwide attraction; considers that European enterprises should receive greater encouragement to develop generic software, a field which in any case requires extra impetus;

20. Calls on the Member States to devote more attention to newly established enterprises which employ new technologies and market new products, as they often require a long start-up period and are compelled to make strenuous efforts in order to make the new product a commercial proposition; believes that a climate should therefore be fostered in which innovative businesses can thrive, for example by creating greater opportunities for venture capital in the initial period by means of tax incentives;

21. Welcomes the Commission's initiative regarding the Memorandum of Understanding on Open Access to Electronic Commerce for European SMEs, but also calls on the Commission and Council actively to promote crossborder services and trade by creating open systems in which electronic commerce can be integrated, such as a European open electronic payment system based on the euro, and to draft legislation on this so as to guarantee legal certainty;

22. Urges the Commission and Council to assign priority to analyzing the impact of the information society on tax systems and employment within the European Union and to initiate a debate on the consequences of loss of tax revenue on the revenue of national governments;

23. Calls on the Commission to make rapid progress with the inquiry announced in the Rolling Action Plan concerning the extent to which existing competition legislation is adequate in the information society, taking into account possible abuses of power by large conglomerates operating worldwide, and to require such large enterprises to render their organizational structures transparent worldwide by means of WTO, OECD and G7 agreements, inter alia with regard to the rules laid down in Articles 85 and 86 of the EC Treaty;

24. Supports the extension proposed by the Commission of its international negotiating mandate with a view to representing European interests in the worldwide information society, provided that the prerogatives of the European Parliament are respected in so doing;

25. Urges the Commission and Council to devote special attention to access to ICTs for women, the elderly, the untrained and groups who are liable to be excluded from the information society on account of their geographical position or social background, for example by cooperating with market participants responsible for infrastructure and basic services in peripheral and disadvantaged regions to facilitate voluntary upgrading of the potential of their networks in order to ensure that the information society does not lead to new forms of inequality;

26. Calls on the Commission, the Council and the two sides of industry to engage in a debate as to how, in the light of the information society, social security systems can be reformed, taking into account demographic trends, flexible working arrangements such as teleworking and opportunities for vocational training, so that people who have been dismissed or are in danger of dismissal can resort to retraining in order to improve their employment prospects;

27. Calls on the Commission and Member States, within the ambit of their respective competences, to secure Europe's interests in the field of employment in the international arena and to champion minimum standards appropriate to the new forms of law on working conditions in the information society pursuant to Articles 118 and 118a of the EC Treaty;

28. Calls on the Commission and Council to continue to formulate measures to protect citizens against illegal and damaging material conveyed by various media in the information society, and also to take worldwide action to prevent the dissemination of material glorifying violence, racist texts and pornography;

29. Urges the Commission to design decision-making processes relating to ICT in such a way that the public and enterprises are informed and consulted both at Union and at Member State level and so as to assign them a coherent and cooperative role therein, for example by means of an annual European 'ICT week' analogous to the 'employment week';

30. Is gratified to learn from the Rolling Action Plan that the Commission is carrying out measures in a very broad field through its telematics projects together with authorities, institutions and enterprises, particularly because the knowledge gained from these projects constitutes the basis for the development of the interactive services sector, but regrets that many initiatives do not proceed beyond the research stage but founder because of their small scale, commercialization or budgetary problems, and that there is precious little evaluation;

31. Stresses that it is very important for the development of know-how and technology that, in the framework programmes, greater emphasis should be placed on the commercialization of the knowledge gained and on rendering the projects more transparent by organizing a large ICT fair at least once per annum (perhaps in cooperation with CeBit in Hanover), at which all the project groups would present the latest developments and technologies together with other European organizations;

32. Proposes, furthermore, that greater use be made of European and national technology funds to carry out large-scale, innovative and risky ICT projects which explore the ultimate limits of technology, in order to encourage enterprises and the public and to show that the information society is a challenge, for example by strengthening the links between universities and industry and supporting ICT-related courses and work experience placements in the USA and Japan, and to constantly exchange the knowledge gained;

33. Welcomes the Commission's emphasis on the importance of research and development and the assertion that information society related research will play a central role in the 5th Framework Programme, but is concerned that content should not be neglected in favour of infrastructure, and that moreover, research relating to the social implications of technological developments should also attract Community support;

34. Calls on the Commission and Council to continue the dialogue referred to in the Rolling Action Plan between the industrialized and developing countries concerning the principles and strategies which should be applied to ensure that modern ICTs do not create inequalities but on the contrary contribute to social, economic, ecological and cultural development;

35. Takes the view that applications for developing countries should be geared to the development of integrated systems to meet basic human needs, particularly in rural areas, and concentrate on universal access and local content, with equal attention being devoted to the development of the physical infrastructure and of human resources;

36. Calls on the Council, in particular, to assume responsibility for continuing the process which began in The Hague with regard to 'Supporting Market-Led Developments' in order to accelerate access to the information society, and extending it to include new initiatives which support the Rolling Action Plan, as the Council has so far contributed little to the fleshing-out and synergy of ICT programmes;

37. Calls on the Commission to coordinate better, concentrate and improve the coherence of future measures based on the Rolling Action Plan in order to attain higher quality with less quantity and to include in future action plans an evaluation of past measures of this kind;

38. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.