Proposal for a Council Decision adopting a Multiannual Community programme to stimulate the development and use of European digital content on the global networks and to promote linguistic diversity in the Information Society
Date: 2000-05-24
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU programme, cultural pluralism, information network, information technology, new technology

28.11.2000

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 337 E/31

Proposal for a Council Decision adopting a Multiannual Community programme to stimulate the
development and use of European digital content on the global networks and to promote linguistic
diversity in the Information Society

(2000/C 337 E/04)

(Text with EEA relevance)

COM(2000) 323 final (cid:14) 2000/0128(CNS)

(Submitted by the Commission on 24 May 2000)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European
Community, and in particular Article 157(3) thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament,

Having regard to the opinion of
Committee,

the Economic and Social

Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions,

Whereas:

(1) The evolution towards an Information Society will influence
the life of almost every citizen in the European Union.

(2) Digital content plays a predominant role in this evolution,
substantially contributing to economic growth and
employment, and enhancing the professional, social and
cultural development of the citizens of Europe.

(3) The structures and business environment of the content

industries are changing fast.

(4) There are numerous barriers to the full development of

the European content industries and markets.

(5) The Bonn ministerial declaration, issued at the conference
of 6-8 July 1997 on the role of global networks for the
Information Society, devotes
to the
Internet commercial developments,
forming the
basis for the continuing discussions on Internet content,
management issues and electronic commerce.

interest

special

thus

(6) On 8 December 1999 the Commission adopted the
eEurope initiative (1) which was subsequently welcomed
by Member States at the Helsinki European Council of
10 and 11 December 1999.

(7) On 23 and 24 March 2000 the European Council

in
the content
Lisbon specifically recognised the role of
industries in creating added value by exploiting and
networking European cultural diversity.

(1) COM(1999) 687.

(8) Community actions undertaken concerning the content of
information should respect the Union’s multilingual and
that
multicultural character and encourage initiatives
facilitate access to digital
information in the languages
of present and candidate countries.

(9) The interim evaluations of the INFO 2000 programme
established by Council Decision 96/339/EC (2) and the
Information Society Initiative (MLIS) estab-
Multilingual
lished by Council Decision 96/664/EC (3) call
for a
vigorous follow-up of the actions in the area of digital
content and linguistic and cultural diversity.

(10) Measures should be taken encouraging participation of

SMEs in Information Society developments.

(11) The different rates of development on the provision and
use of information services in the present Member States
special
and
consideration, having regard to the internal cohesion of
the Community and the risks associated with a two-tier
Information Society.

candidate

countries

deserve

the

in

(12) The Commission has published in January 1999 a Green
Paper on Public Sector Information in the Information
Society (4), launching a European debate on this topic.

(13)

In accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and
proportionality as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty, the
objectives of the proposed actions cannot be sufficiently
achieved by the Member States due to the transnational
character of the issues at stake and can, therefore, by
reason of the European scope and effects of the actions
be better achieved by the Community. This Decision
confines itself
to the minimum required in order to
achieve those objectives and does not go beyond what
is necessary for that purpose.

(14) Any content policy action should be complementary to
other ongoing Community initiatives, and be performed
the fifth Framework
in synergy with actions under
the
Programme
Framework
the Media
programmes, with Community education actions, SME
actions, and with the Structural Funds.

for
Programme

and Development,

Research

Culture,

for

(2) OJ L 129, 30.5.1996, p. 24.
(3) OJ L 306, 28.11.1996, p. 40.
(4) COM(1998) 585.

C 337 E/32

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

28.11.2000

(15) Complementarity and synergy with related Community
initiatives and programmes should be ensured by the
Commission through appropriate coordination mech-
anisms.

appropriate,

to developments

(16) Progress of this programme should be continuously and
systematically monitored with a view to adapting it,
where
in the digital
content market. In due course there should be an inde-
pendent assessment of the progress of the programme so
as to provide the background information needed in order
to determine the objectives for subsequent content policy
actions. At the end of this programme, there should be a
final assessment of the results obtained compared with the
objectives set out in this Decision.

(17)

It may be appropriate to engage in international coop-
eration activities with international organisations and
third countries for the purpose of
implementing this
programme.

(18)

It is necessary to fix the duration of the programme.

(19)

for

In accordance with Article 2 of Council Decision
1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the
procedures
implementing powers
conferred on the Commission (1), measures
the
implementation of this Decision should be adopted by
use of the advisory procedure provided for in Article 3
of Decision 1999/468/EC,

the exercise of

for

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:

Article 1

A multiannual programme AEuropean Digital Content for the
Global NetworksB (hereinafter referred to as Athe programmeB) is
hereby adopted.

The programme has the following objectives:

(a) creating favourable conditions for the commercialisation,
distribution and use of European digital content on the
global networks,
thus stimulating economic activity and
enhancing employment prospects;

Article 2

In order to attain the objectives referred to in Article 1, the
following actions shall be undertaken under the guidance of
the Commission, in accordance with the action lines set out in
Annex I and the means for implementing the programme set
out in Annex III:

(a) stimulating the exploitation of public sector information;

(b) enhancing linguistic and cultural customisation;

(c) supporting market enablers;

(d) support actions.

Article 3

The programme shall cover a period of
January 2001 to 31 December 2005.

five years from 1

The annual appropriations shall be authorised by the budgetary
authority within the limits of the financial perspective.

An indicative breakdown of expenditure is given in Annex II.

Article 4

The Commission shall be responsible for the implemen-
1.
tation of
the programme and its coordination with other
Community programmes. The Commission will draw up a
bi-annual work programme every two years on the basis of
this Decision.

The Commission shall act

in accordance with the
2.
procedure referred to in Article 5(2) for the purposes of the
following:

(a) adoption of the work programme;

(b) determination of

the criteria and content of calls for

proposals;

for
the projects proposed under calls
(c) assessment of
proposals
for Community funding with an estimated
amount of Community contribution that is equal to, or
more than EUR 1 000 000;

(b) stimulating the use of Europe’s content potential, and in

particular public sector information;

(d) any departure from the rules set out in Annex III;

(c) promoting multilingualism in digital content on the global
networks and increasing the export opportunities of
European content firms and in particular SMEs through
linguistic customisation;

(d) contributing to the professional, social and cultural devel-
opment of the citizens of the Union and facilitating the
economic
in the
candidate countries in the Information Society.

integration of

and social

citizens

(1) OJ L 184, 17.7.1999, p. 23.

(e) acceptance of participation in any project by legal entities
from third countries and international organisations other
than those mentioned in Article 7(1) and (2).

3. Where the amount of
referred to in
paragraph 2(c) is less than EUR 1 000 000, the Commission
shall merely inform the committee established by Article 5(1)
of the projects and of the outcome of their assessment.

the projects

The Commission shall
progress with the implementation of
whole.

regularly inform the committee of
the programme as a

28.11.2000

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 337 E/33

Article 5

The Commission shall be assisted by a committee
the Member States and

1.
composed of
representatives of
chaired by the representative of the Commission.

2. Where reference is made to this paragraph, the advisory
procedure laid down in Article 3 of Decision 1999/468/EC
shall apply, in compliance with Article 7 thereof.

2. The Commission may present, on the basis of those results,
proposals for adjusting the orientation of the programme.

Article 7

1.
Participation in the programme may be opened to legal
entities established in EFTA States which are members of the
European Economic Area (EEA)
in accordance with the
provisions of the Agreement on the EEA.

Article 6

The programme shall be open to participation of

2.
candidate countries on the following basis:

1.
In order to ensure that Community aid is used efficiently,
the Commission shall ensure that actions under this Decision
are subject
to effective prior appraisal, monitoring and
subsequent evaluation.

During implementation of projects

their
2.
completion the Commission shall evaluate the manner
in
which they have been carried out and the impact of their
implementation in order
the original
objectives have been achieved.

to assess whether

and after

The selected beneficiaries shall submit an annual report

3.
to the Commission.

After three years and at the end of the programme, the
4.
the
Commission shall submit
Council,
and the
Committee of the Regions an evaluation report on the results
obtained in implementing the action lines referred to in Article

to the European Parliament,
and Social Committee

the Economic

(a) those

from central

and eastern Europe

in
accordance with the conditions established in the Europe
Agreements,
in their additional protocols, and in the
decisions of the respective Association Councils;

(CEECs),

(b) Cyprus, Malta and Turkey,
agreements to be concluded.

in accordance with bilateral

Participation may be opened,

in accordance with the
3.
financial
procedure
referred to in Article 5(2), without
to legal
support by the Community from the programme,
entities established in other third countries and to international
organisations, where such participation contributes effectively
to the implementation of
the programme and taking into
account the principle of mutual benefit.

Article 8

This Decision is addressed to the Member States.

ANNEX I

ACTION LINES

The action lines are a means to implement a European approach to the development of the digital content industries.
They will contribute to the strategic objectives of the European Digital Content on the Global Networks programme, that
have been defined as follows:

D creating favourable conditions for the commercialisation, distribution and use of European digital content on the

global networks, thus stimulating economic activity and enhancing employment prospects;

D stimulating the use of Europe’s content potential, and in particular public sector information;

D promoting multilingualism in digital content on the global networks and increasing the export opportunities of

European content firms and in particular SMEs through linguistic customisation;

D contributing to the professional, social and cultural development of the citizens of the EU and facilitating the

economic and social integration of citizens in the candidate countries in the Information Society.

The different action lines of the new programme are strongly intertwined: e.g. linguistic aspects are essential for the
cross-border exploitation of public sector information, facilitating access to capital for Internet start-ups is fundamental
for the language industries, etc.

C 337 E/34

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

28.11.2000

1. Stimulating the exploitation of public sector information

The Green Paper on Public Sector Information in the Information Society, published in January 1999, triggered a
discussion at European level on the issues of access to and exploitation of public sector information. This discussion
has contributed to the awareness in this field among public and private parties and may be an important basis for
improving the exploitation conditions in Europe. At the same time, experiments of public/private partnerships,
started under the INFO 2000 programme, should be accelerated and expanded. Participation of EU applicant
countries in the initiatives of this action line will facilitate future integration. A better management of information
(e.g. land registers) in these countries is of vital importance for creating a transparent legal framework as well as the
functioning of the internal market after accession.

Within this action line the use of language technology applications will be promoted among the administrations of
Member States and the EU institutions.

Experiments in concrete projects

The public sector collects and produces vast amounts of information, much of which is of interest to individuals and
businesses, and which can be the raw material for value-added information services produced by the content
industries. There are, however, many barriers for the transformation of this enormous potential
into saleable
products and services. Demonstration projects that can be used as examples of good practices and that will allow
to identify practical problems in public/private partnerships, will help to redress this situation. These projects will
serve as catalysts to further developments in this field.

Preliminary actions have started under the INFO 2000 programme, that supported a limited number of pilot and
demonstration projects. Given the huge potential of this domain, experiments with public-private partnerships, aimed
at the exploitation of public sector information with a European interest will continue.

There will be room within this action line for projects forging links between the content industries and public sector
bodies in the candidate countries, increasing the availability of viable information for business and citizens.

Establishment of European digital data collections

The pilot-projects as described above usually cover a limited geographical area within Europe. Nevertheless the
absence of complete datasets at European level constitute one of the barriers to the exploitation of the content
potential. Therefore, in addition to the experimental projects, the establishment of European data collections will be
stimulated, through financial support to work on pan-European metadata for public sector information and through
projects covering a significant number EU Member States. Interest and commitment of private parties will be decisive
for selecting the type of data and the areas to be covered.

High level group

Without prejudice to the final decision that the Commission will take on the follow-up to the Green paper on public
sector information, it is foreseen that a high level group on public sector information is established, consisting of
Member States representatives, actors from the information industries, consumers organisations and other represen-
tatives of citizens interests. It will not only give guidance to the different initiatives in this field (follow-on to the
Green Paper on public sector information in the Information Society, COM(1998) 585), but can also be an important
platform for the detection and dissemination of best practices.

2. Enhancing linguistic and cultural customisation

Adequate support for multilingual and cross-cultural
information access and exchange is a key enabler for the
development of a European mass market for information products and services. The merely technological aspects
of this process are well covered within the fifth Framework Programme. RTD activities, however, do not address the
fundamental issue of turning technological advances into enhanced business capabilities and market penetration. The
programme will sustain actions aiming at the establishment of closer collaborations between the European content
and language industries, thus overcoming the linguistic fragmentation of European markets and enhancing the global
competitiveness of both sectors. These actions constitute a natural follow-up to the actions carried out under the
precursor MLIS programme, adapted to the needs of an increasingly digital and networked environment. Special
attention will be given to SMEs and start-ups, and to less widely spoken EU languages and the languages of potential
new Member States.

Fostering new partnerships and the adoption of multi-language strategies

This sub-line addresses the development of cost effective multi-language solutions and processes, by promoting new
forms of partnership between the digital content and the language industries. Private and public-sector content
providers and distributors will be stimulated to make their products and services available in a broader range of
IT vendors and telecom operators will be
languages, throughout
encouraged to provide new tools and digital delivery channels enabling multilingual
information access and
provision. The providers of language services and utilities will be encouraged to adapt their offerings to meet the
needs of an expanding customer base in the content industries.

the design, authoring and publishing chain.

28.11.2000

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 337 E/35

Strengthening the linguistic infrastructure

The availability of an adequate linguistic infrastructure is an absolute prerequisite for the timely and cost effective
creation and exploitation of multilingual content. It is the structural basis for any sustained internationalisation and
forces often prove insufficient.
localisation effort, especially for less widely spoken languages where market
Strengthening the linguistic infrastructure implies establishing an open framework comprising standardised and
inter-operable multilingual resources encompassing e.g. electronic lexicons, corpora, translation memories and termi-
nology collections. These resources will be pooled together to yield widely accessible repositories which can then be
exploited by content providers and distributors, and by suppliers of language services.

The work in this field builds on the results of FP III and FP IV for RTD, that provided the expertise and the
technological tools needed.

3. Supporting market enablers

The dynamics in the content market and the resulting uncertainties for market-players may lead to inertia and
underinvestment. Support to access the available forms of investment capital, and a means to trade rights online for
multimedia production will speed up new initiatives and investments. The actions below are designed to contribute
to create the basic conditions.

Bridging the funding gap

Limitations in accessing capital for European Internet start-ups hold back the market opportunities in digital content.
This has a negative impact on economic growth and employment. Actions encouraging the flow of capital towards
Internet start-ups will be undertaken. The goal is to bring out the full potential of European digital content in terms
of creativity, exploitation of the European cultural heritage, business models, e-commerce, research results, innovative
applications, mobile multimedia, etc. Actions will complement other Community programmes as well as national
initiatives in accordance with the subsidiarity principle.

It is proposed to redress the mismatch between existing financial resources and the use the content sector makes of
them. The EC will act to provide a bridge between companies in the digital content area and potential investors. The
actions will build on expertise present in business universities and training centres, as well as deployment of distance
learning facilities, organising seminars, conferences and fora to encourage the exchange of information and best
practice.

Rights trading

Rights trading is the basis for creating products mixing text, images and sound. The effectiveness and efficiency of the
multimedia rights clearance have a strong and direct impact on the functioning of the content industries. The
integration and interoperation of distributed specialised clearance services at European level was stimulated under
INFO2000 through feasibility studies, prototype, standards and pilot system development. Further investment is
needed to arrive at a unified European rights clearance approach. The focus of
future actions will be on
extending rights clearance pilots and on specific support measures. Pilot projects will have to cover the candidate
countries, less advanced sectors and specific public sector applications.

4. Support Actions

The programme execution will be supported by actions aiming at the dissemination of the results (e.g. publications,
world wide web sites, conferences showcasing projects) as well as strategic operations (e.g. studies and fora) bringing
together different parts of the content and languages markets.

A vision of future developments shared by both private and public parties will reduce uncertainties and speed up
concrete initiatives and investments. Continuous interaction between market players and public parties will be of
increasing importance as a key mechanism to foster the evolution of the vision-building process. The observation of
developments in the market in close contact with the industry actors in the content and language industries will
constitute the information basis needed to update the vision-building process, allowing a continuous benchmarking
with third countries. Basic data on the sector will be collected. The regular and consistent observation of the
converging content and languages market is presently fragmented. Industry led data collection, co-financed by the
EU and covering the converging content industries should be established. In the ICT domain this practice is well
established through the publication of the annual EITO report.

C 337 E/36

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

28.11.2000

ANNEX II

INDICATIVE BREAKDOWN OF EXPENDITURE

1. Stimulating the exploitation of public sector information

2. Enhancing linguistic and cultural customisation

3. Supporting market enablers

4. Support Actions

48 %-52 %

38 %-42 %

5 %-9 %

3 %-4 %

100 %

Total

ANNEX III

THE MEANS FOR IMPLEMENTING THE PROGRAMME

1. The Commission will implement the programme in accordance with the technical content specified in Annex I.

2. The programme will be executed through indirect actions and wherever possible on a shared-cost basis.

3. The selection of shared-cost projects will normally be based on the calls for proposals procedure published in the
Official Journal of the European Communities. The content of the calls for proposals will be defined in close consultation
with the relevant experts and according to the procedures referred to in Article 5 of the Decision. The main criterion
for supporting projects through calls for proposals will be their potential contribution to achieving the objectives of
the programme.

4. Applications for Community support should provide, where appropriate, a financial plan listing all the components
of the funding of the projects, including the financial support requested from the Community, and any other requests
for or grants of support from other sources.

5. The Commission may also implement other more flexible funding schemes than the call for proposals in order to
provide incentives for the creation of partnerships, in particular involving SMEs and organisations in less favoured
regions, or for other exploratory activities in different segments of the multimedia content market. These schemes
might be operated on a permanent basis.

6. The detailed arrangements for the procedures referred to under point 6 will be implemented after consultation of the
committee referred to in Article 4 of this Decision, following the rules of Article 5 of this Decision, in accordance
with the Financial Regulations. They will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

7. Projects fully financed by the Commission within the framework of study and services contracts will be implemented
through calls for tenders in accordance with the financial provisions in force. Transparency will be achieved by
publishing the work programme and circulating it to interested bodies.

8. For the implementation of the programme the Commission will also undertake preparatory, accompanying and
support activities designed to achieve the general objectives of the programme and the specific aims of each action
line. This includes activities such as: studies and consultancy in support of the programme; preliminary actions in
preparation of future activities; measures aimed at facilitating participation in the programme as well as facilitating
access to the results produced under the programme; publications and activities for the dissemination, promotion
and exploitation of results: brochures, electronic publications (CD-ROMs, DVD, web presence, etc.), participation at
exhibitions, preparation of press related material, etc.; analysis of possible socio-economic consequences associated
with the programme; and support activities such as spreading the use of digital content standards, and encouraging
skills development at European level.

9. All projects receiving financial support under the programme will be required to display an acknowledgement of the

support received on the products.