28. 2. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 53/65 
Proposal for a Council Decision setting up a programme for an information services market 
CC)M(90) 570 final 
(Submitted by the Commission on 28 January 1991) 
(91/C 53/07) 
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, 
% 
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European 
Economic Community, and in particular Article 235 
thereof, 
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission, 
Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament, 
Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social 
Committee, 
Whereas, by virtue of the economic importance of 
information, the creation of an internal information services 
market occupies an essential place in the consolidation and 
strengthening of the internal market after 1992; 
Whereas the initial results of the plan of actions for setting up 
an information services market in Europe adopted by the 
Council by Decision 88/524/EEC (J) indicate that a much 
broader programme is necessary; 
Whereas there exist numerous legal, administrative, fiscal 
and other technical barriers to the development of an internal 
information market which are hindering the setting up of 
new services causing, in some cases, distortions of 
competition; 
Whereas the future development of information resources 
and information-based services requires the application of 
new technologies and the achievement of economies of 
scale; 
Whereas the Community has a competitive position which is 
strong in some sectors of the information market but which 
needs to be strengthened in others; 
Whereas the need for simplification of procedures, as well as 
harmonization, in the field of database access should 
undergo priority scrutiny; 
Whereas the needs and legitimate demands of users of 
information services, and particularly of those in small and 
medium-sized enterprises and in the less-favoured regions of 
the Community, merit special attention; 
(M OJ No L 288, 21. 10. 1988, p. 39. Whereas the different rates of development in the provision 
and use of information services in the Member States merit 
special attention with the view of strengthening the internal 
cohesion of the Community and the working of the internal 
market; 
Whereas the growing importance of information in 
international transactions, and of the related problems 
concerning services, is receiving increasing attention in 
international fora and this fact serves to emphasize the 
necessity for Member States to develop common positions in 
those fora; 
Whereas the Community's financial engineering mechanisms 
may contribute to the implementation of the present plan of 
action, in particular with regard to strategic or other pilot 
and demonstration projects; 
Whereas that part of the amount deemed necessary which is 
intended to finance pilot and demonstration projects may be 
used, in particular, to attract any necessary additional 
sources of funding from the partners concerned, thereby 
having a multiplier effect on the development of the 
European information services market; 
Whereas any information market policy must be 
complementary to other Community initiatives, notably in 
the fields of telecommunications; 
Whereas the Treaty has not provided the necessary powers to 
this end, other than those of Article 235, 
HAS DECIDED AS FOLLOWS: 
v Article 1 
A programme is hereby set up with the following 
objectives: 
1. to establish an internal market for information 
services; 
2. to stimulate and reinforce the competitive capability of 
European suppliers of information services; 
3. to promote the use of advanced information services; 
4. to reinforce joint efforts to achieve Community cohesion 
with respect to information service policies. 
No C 53/66 Official Journal of the European Communities 28. 2. 91 
Article 2 
In order to attain the objectives referred to in Article 1, the 
following actions shall be undertaken under the 
responsibility of the Commission, in accordance with 
Annex I: 
1. improving the understanding of the market; 
2. overcoming legal and administrative barriers; 
3. increasing user-friendliness and improving information 
literacy; 
4. supporting strategic information initiatives. 
None of the actions shall duplicate the work carried out in 
these areas under Community or national programmes. 
Article 3 
The programme shall cover a period of five years. Article 4 
At the midterrr^ and at the end of the programme, the 
Commission shall submit to the European Parliament and to 
the Council evaluation reports on the results obtained 
through the implementation of the actions and may present, 
on the basis of those results, proposals for adjustment in the 
orientation of the programme. 
Article 5 
1. The Commission is hereby authorized to negotiate 
agreements with third countries taking part in the 
development of the information services market with a view 
to associating them wholly or partially with the programme. 
These agreements shall be based on the criteria of mutual 
advantage. 
2. Before entering into the negotiations referred to in 
paragraph 1, the Commission shall inform the Council of its 
intentions to negotiate and of the terms of reference of these 
negotiations. 
Article 6 
This Decision shall take effect on . . . 
ANNEX I 
ACTION LINES OF IMPACT 2 
Action line 1: Improving the understanding of the market 
1.1. The European Information Market Observatory (IMO) will continue and extend the scope of its activities 
for the identification of the European Community's competitive strengths and weaknesses in the sector in 
order to keep Community institutions and Member States informed in drawing up their policy. During the 
initial phase of Impact the IMO focused its investigations on the supply of database services. It will enlarge 
the scope of its investigations to neighbouring publishing markets with particular attention to the market for 
business and trade press and scientific, technical and medical publishing. The IMO will give greater focus to 
user surveys, in order to gain better knowledge of the means by which users get access to the professional 
information they need and identify gaps which require Community initiatives. 
1.2. The IMO will keep a permanent inventory of existing market data sources. It will primarily rely on these 
sources to purchase the data it needs for its investigations. It will launch or stimulate additional surveys when 
the data required are unavailable, incomplete or unreliable. It will also carry out sectoral investigations in 
order to identify those sectors of the information market which are inadequately served or slowly progressing 
although they are of strategic importance for the Community. Following the initial methodological 
workshop organised in 1989 in cooperation with Eurostat, the IMO will support the long term 
methodological efforts required for the creation of a conceptual framework that will allow the inclusion of 
the information services sector in official statistics. In addition, the IMO will encourage further work in 
information sciences and economics of information to stimulate the development of models and forecasting 
tools which are required for the prognosis of information market trends and the assessment of their impact 
on the rest of the economy. 
1.3. The intention of the IMO is to supplement the efforts of Member State companies and other organizations 
interested in the development of the market. The activities of the IMO will therefore be undertaken in 
conjunction with and not supplant, the efforts of Member States, private sector companies and other 
28. 2. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 53/67 
organizations. The IMO will strengthen its network of national correspondents and improve links with 
existing European and national associations in the information market. It will cooperate with these 
associations and relevant research organizations on shared-cost projects. In order .to improve its 
documentation on the world market for information services, the IMO will seek to exchange on information 
with appropriate non-Community organizations such as the Japan'Database Promotion Center and the 
American Information Industry Association. 
1.4. The results of the IMO analysis will be widely disseminated to users and industry through dissemination 
agreements with representative associations and specialized publishers. Each year, the IMO will prepare a 
report to Council and Parliament on the main changes which have occurred on the information 
market. 
Action line 2: Overcoming legal and administrative barriers 
2.1. The actions which will be undertaken within the framework of Impact 2 will contribute to strengthening the 
synergy of work being carried out on legal problems of a horizontal nature (e.g. protection of privacy, 
responsibility, intellectual property, proof and authentication of electronic signatures) and to proposing 
Community initiatives specific to certain segments of the information services market. 
2.2. The first category of work will contribute to the improvement of the coordination of sectoral initiatives on 
legal problems of a horizontal nature being undertaken within the framework of different programmes. With 
this in view, the Commission will reinforce the expertise and documentary resources it has acquired with the 
help of the Legal Advisory Board (LAB) in order to provide Member States and Community institutions with 
easier access to reference documents and to information on current work in the area. To this effect, the 
Commission will examine the possibility of encouraging the development of a specialized database. It will 
seek the expertise of LAB in preparing legal initiatives linked to new technologies. In parallel, it will continue 
and strengthen its cooperation with the Council of Europe and the Organization for Economic Cooperation 
and Development in areas of common interest. 
2.3. The second category of work will concentrate on the contribution to the preparation of initiatives specific to 
certain segments of the information market. The Commission will examine the legal problems raised by the 
implementation of the guidelines designed to strengthen the synergy between the public sector and the 
private sector in the information market; it will draw up proposals for harmonizing the rules on the 
marketing of data files held by public and quasi-public bodies. It will encourage the drawing up of European 
codes of conduct and monitor the application of data privacy protection in relation to the marketing of 
certain database services, such as mailing lists and databanks on credit and solvency. It will draw up 
Community guidelines to harmonize the conditions for opening up electronic information services to the 
public and to provide the framework for contractual arrangements between the various market actors in 
areas such as editorial liability, service quality control, confidentiality, database usage and, in particular, 
publishers' rights. 
2.4. The composition of LAB will be modified by the Commission so as to make better provision for the 
participation in its work of public authorities and of relevant market actors as a complement to the 
participation of independent legal experts specialized in the various topics for examination. 
2.5. The Commission will implement an active policy of disseminating the results of LAB's work, in conjunction 
with specialized publishers, in order better to inform the actors of their rights and obligations. 
Action line 3: Increasing user-friendliness and improving information literacy 
3.1. In complement to current efforts for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) the Commission will promote the 
development of open information interchange standards in cooperation with existing standardization 
structures such as EWOS, ETSI and CEN/Cenelec. The demonstration and efficient application of 
information standards or industry norms for the encoding and structuring of information will be supported. 
Incentives will be provided to the acting parties to complete and extend existing information standards. The 
Commission will support demonstration projects to promote the application of information standards and 
to demonstrate their benefits. This will include in particular standards like the Standardized General 
Markup Language (SGML) and Office Document Architecture (ODA). The use of information standards in 
public sector information products will be promoted. 
3.2. The development of generic interfaces providing flexible and economic solutions to access a large spectrum 
of information services will be encouraged. This will cover multimedia and European-wide access. The 
integration of multilingual facilities or icons and graphics in information services, the development of 
controlled vocabulary and natural language retrieval methods will be supported to facilitate access by 
untrained users. Incentives to extend existing natural language interfaces to other Community languages will 
be provided to support the Community's cohesion. Efforts will be undertaken to encourage the application 
of research results in areas such as experts systems, human-computer interface and natural language 
processing, in information services. An umbrella project for testing the viability of European business Kiosk 
No C 53/68 Official Journal of the European Communities 28. 2. 91 
facilities that will provide SMEs with easy access to professional audiotex, videotex and ASCII information 
services will be developed. Integrated application of different types of information using sound, graphics, 
text and images will be stimulated. 
3.3. To promote information literacy among professional people, the Commission will rely primarily on 
multipliers in the information services market and on certain groups of end-users. These multipliers include 
educational institutions, professional associations, national focal points, gateway operators and the 
specialized press. 
Actions aimed at supporting the multipliers, experts and end-users will comprise: development of 
appropriate tools such as documentation, multi-media shows, videos, in all Community languages; 
organization of conferences, seminars, workshops, information days, press conferences; participation in 
exhibitions; maintenance of existing directories and extension by new information products; publication of 
a regular newsletter giving information on Community initiatives; presence in information distribution 
networks of database inventories etc.; providing of a central help desk for users of information services, 
including a free phone enquiry service; operation of the multilingual host service ECHO (European 
Commission Host Organization) which will continue to especially support new users of electronic 
information services and will act as an instrument for transferring know-how to the market place in 
accordance with the guidelines for the improvement of the synergy between the public and the private sectors 
in the information market. 
3.4. Training actions will address all kinds of information handlers within the information chain covering: 
database production, host service operatidn, multimedia dissemination of information and use of 
information. Support will be given to training intermediaries and professionals in the use of electronic 
information both on-line and off-line, with special attention being given to less favoured regions. Actions 
will also include training of future trainers in different regions, economic sectors and companies. Close 
collaboration with national and local authorities and other programmes (e.g. STAR, Delta) will be 
sought. 
Action line 4: Supporting strategic information initiatives 
4.1. The provisions of electronic scientific and technical information services (STI) — a basic resource for the 
European research community and for industrial progress — will be stimulated and strengthened. The 
Commission will build on recent initiatives in the areas of biotechnology information and engineering 
materials data systems by creating a European cooperative network for biotechnology information and the 
further development of material data services. These initiatives will aim at improving the availability, quality 
and accessibility of European STI services through the creation of appropriate tools and structures which 
will foster the integration of existing systems and services and a more efficient sharing of resources. 
4.2. Information services development in strategically important market sectors will be stimulated and facilities 
for cooperation will be made available. Where necessary the creation of embryonic structures will be 
supported. In particular information services which are relevant to Community policies or internal market 
operations will be stimulated. Harmonization efforts will be undertaken in new sectors in which 
spontaneous but uncoordinated developments take place; in order to stimulate cooperation and networking. 
The areas of patent information, information on standards, tourism and transport information, cultural 
information, environment and health information, and the standardised production of digitized basic 
' geographical maps have been identified as sectors for Community action. 
4.3. The strategic information projects may be extended and/or reviewed in the course of programme 
implementation on the basis of requirements identified by the IMO, of the results obtained at the mid-term 
review of this- programme, and following close consultation with the information industry and the 
programme's advisory body. The priority areas which had been identified for pilot/demonstration projects 
under the previous Impact programme, but not yet developed so far, will be reviewed and action undertaken, 
if market needs are confirmed. 
4.4. Commercial ventures for the development of information products and services on the basis of European 
partnership, e.g. Groupement Europ6en d'Int£ret Economique (GEIE), will be stimulated by reducing the 
financial burden involved in international cooperation. This will be applied in particular to small and 
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A support scheme will be provided for the preparation of international 
projects, for joint ventures agreed by partners from different Member States and for the transfer of 
know-how from advanced to less favoured regions of the Community. Closer cooperation between 
European and national trade or professional organizations will be supported, as well as the involvement of 
national focal points in order to promote strategic projects and the creation of an internal market for 
information. 
4.5. The Commission will explore the possible linking of relevant organizations in the Member States into a 
networked media laboratory to develop a European expertise in information product prototype 
development for multimedia information services products, for promoting the exchange of experience and 
the transfer of know-how, and for achieving synergy between publishers and system suppliers. 
28. 2. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 53/69 
4.6. The taking off of the information market in less favoured regions depends on strategic information projects 
with catalytic effects. Adequate national/regional initiatives will be encouraged through Community 
support to projects with multiplier effect and elements of reproducibility on other geographical areas. 
4.7. ' Shared cost projects will be one of the main instruments of the Commission to boost the strategic information 
initiatives. In some market sectors pilot and demonstration projects will be required to demonstrate new 
development on a sufficiently wide scale and to achieve a catalytic effect on the development of European 
information services which otherwise would remain inadequate in size, coverage and scope. These projects 
will be defined in collaboration with users and/or industry. 
ANNEX II 
INDICATIVE INTERNAL BREAKDOWN OF APPROPRIATIONS 
in % 
1. Improving the understanding of the market 8—10 
2. Overcoming legal and administrative barriers 7 9 
3. Increasing user friendliness and improving information literacy 33 35 
4. Supporting strategic information initiatives 48—50 
ANNEX III 
MODALITIES FOR PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION 
1. The Commission will implement the programme in accordance with the technical content specified in 
Annex I. 
2. The modalities for programme implementation will reflect the experience obtained with the implementation 
modalities of the previous Impact programme and taking into account the results of the evaluation report. 
This suggests an increased number of shared cost projects for horizontal activities, in particular with regard to 
investigations carried out by the IMO, and streaming of procedures with regard to the implementation of 
vertical actions to better respond to the constraints and interests of all kinds of market actors, and to increase 
and facilitate their participation in the programme. 
3. The modalities will comply with the Commission's administrative procedures, and with the criteria of 
maximum impact and efficiency, equality and objectivity. They will be designed not to distort competition 
and will be adapted to the specific aims of the various action lines of the programme. 
4. The project participants must be physical or legal persons established in the Community, or associations 
thereof, in particular European Economic Interest Groups (EEIG). 
Physical or legal persons from countries which have concluded agreements providing for cooperation in this 
programme can, on the basis of the criterium of mutual benefit, participate in projects in the framework of the 
present programme. These partners shall not benefit from the financial contribution of the Community. They 
will contribute to the general administrative cost! 
I 
No C 53/70 Official Journal of the European Communities _ 28. 2. 91 
5. The selection of pilot and demonstration projects will normally be based on the normal call for proposals 
procedure which is published in the Official Journal of the European Communities. The procedures for the 
implementation of the calls for proposals will be tailored to each area and the specific subject needs. The 
objectives will be defined by workplans developed in close consultation with the market actors and the 
programme's Committee. 
The main criteria in supporting projects through calls for proposals will be the impact in expanding the 
market without distorting it. Special add-on incentives will be provided to encourage participation of SMEs 
and less favoured regions, as well as for the transfer of know-how. 
6. The Commission might also implement a more flexible funding scheme than the call for proposals in order to 
provide incentives for the creation of European partnerships, in particular involving SMEs and organizations 
in less favoured regions, or for other exploratory activities in different segments of the information market. 
This scheme might be operated on a continuous basis. 
7. The Commission will make provisions to consider in exceptional cases unsolicited project proposals which 
provide for a particularly promising and significant information market development, a new highly 
innovative approach, an exceptional technology or methodology, and which cannot be submitted within the 
normal call for proposals procedure. The objective of avoiding market distortion will be maintained. 
8. The modalities for the two latter procedures will be implemented in consultation with the programme's 
Committee and in accordance with the Commission's financial Regulations. They will be published each year 
in the Official Journal of the European Communities. 
9. Projects fully financed by the Commission within the framework of study and service contracts will be 
implemented through calls for tenders in accordance with the Commission's financial Regulations. 
Transparency will be achieved by publishing and circulating regularly the work programme to trade 
associations and other bodies. 
10. For the implementation of the programme the Commission will also undertake activities designed to achieve 
the general objectives of the programme and the specific ones of each action line. Such activities will include 
workshops, seminars, conferences, studies, awareness campaigns, training courses, support schemes for 
joint ventures, assistance to national focal points and specific support for the LFR's information market 
development.