WRITTEN QUESTION P-1298/96 by Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza (PSE) to the Commission (22 May 1996)

Subject: European Information Society Week, 6-10 May

In association with members of the Euro Info Centres network the Commission organized a European Information Society Week, from 6 to 10 May.

1. Could the Commission say what arrangements and criteria have been used for the organization of this event?

2. Could it also say which centres were involved?

3. Which projects have finally been adopted?

Answer given by Mr Papoutsis on behalf of the Commission (20 June 1996)

To increase awareness of Commission initiatives regarding the information society, the Commission has established the ISPO (Information Society Project Office) project.

An initial group of EuroInfoCentres (EICs), set up following discussions between the members of the 'information society' group of the EIC network, submitted a project to the ISPO in the second half of 1995 for the organization of a European 'information society' week aimed at raising awareness amongst small and medium-sized enterprises, both in the European Union and in non-member countries, of the major developments and opportunities arising in this new context. Subsequently, other EuroInfoCentres proposed events on a voluntary basis (i.e. without Commission funding) in response to a circular sent to all the EuroInfoCentres. Other organizations which had read the information published on this subject in the magazine of the Directorate-General for Enterprise policy, Distributive trades, Tourism and Cooperatives and on ISPO's Web server also proposed events. The main criterion for the events was the quality of the programme.

The initial organizing group, each member of which had received a grant of on average ECU 4 500 from the ISPO, consisted of the EuroInfoCentres of Vienna (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich), Liège, Vordingborg, Luxembourg (Chambre des métiers of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg), Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Toulouse-Blagnac, Mülheim, Bremen, Trier, Patras, Sligo, Genoa, Turin, Venice, Coimbra, Palma de Mallorca, Stockholm, Inverness and Norwich.

The following EuroInfoCentres subsequently joined the project (without ISPO funding): Leipzig, Rome (Confindustria), Bradford, Zaventem, Oulu, Kavala, Cork, Malta and a number of other promoters (Tecnopolis (Bari), Confederazione Nazionale dell'Artigianato (Bologna), Istituto Mides (Rome), IRIS (Liverpool), North of England Innovation Relay Centre, Telecities, 3COM Europe (Brussels), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Auch and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Castres).

The Commission is sending the full programme of projects for that week directly to the Honourable Member and to the Secretariat-General of the Parliament. The projects included, by way of example, the organization of practical demonstrations of the use of basic services and tools (e.g. E-mail, file transfer, EDI, video-conferences, the Internet network, multi-media, on-line databases, etc.), electronic commercial services and tools (e.g. provision of on-line services and products, electronic transactions, electronic markets, etc.), services concerning the organization of work and production (e.g. distance work and production planning) and educational uses (e.g. distance learning, teach-yourself schemes, etc.). In addition, one of the key events of the week was the video link with the Paris Conference of 9-10 May 1996 'Faire des affaires sur le Web', which was organized by the Commission and INRIA to coincide with the fifth international Worldwide Web Conference.