eEurope 2005 What’s new? What’s still important? Broadband, multi-platform access e-business flexibility, enlargement What’s still important? Security access for all * The eEurope 2005 action plan will concentrate on those areas where public policy can provide added value and contribute to creating a positive environment for private investment. * Developing content, services and applications and rolling out the underlying infrastructure is predominantly up to the market. Therefore, the action plan will concentrate on those areas where public policy can provide a value-added and contribute to creating a positive environment for private investment. * The final aim is to bring social as well as economic benefits. Apart from helping European companies develop and exploit new opportunities, eEurope 2005 will contribute to e-inclusion, cohesion and cultural diversity.

Targets By 2005 Europe should have: enabled by: modern online public services e-Government e-Learning e-Health a dynamic e-business environment, enabled by: widespread availability of broadband at competitive prices a secure information infrastructure e-Government: Under the eEurope 2002 Action Plan, Member States agreed to provide all basic services online by end 2002. Much has been achieved in this area but progress is uneven and many services still have limited interactivity. E-Business: Regulatory distinctions between the on and off-line world need to be eliminated.

Action Plan Structured around four interlinked action-lines: policy measures good practice benchmarking overall co-ordination of existing policies Policy measures: to review and adapt legislation at national and European level, to strengthen competition and interoperability, to create awareness, and to demonstrate political leadership. Good Practices: implementation of policy measures is supported by the development, analysis and dissemination of good practices. Projects will be launched to accelerate the roll out of leading edge applications and infrastructure. Benchmarking: policy measures will be monitored and better focussed by benchmarking of the progress made in achieving the objectives and of the policies in support of the objectives An overall co-ordination of existing policies will bring out synergies between proposed actions. A steering committee will provide a better overview of policy developments and ensure a good information exchange between national and European policy makers and the private sector.

Proposed actions: e-Business Dynamic e-Business environment (end 2003) main activities review relevant legislation - e-business summit on legal barriers in 2003 SMEs: creation of a European e-business support network federating regional and national players. E-skills Interoperability: standardization key objectives for interoperable e-business solutions. * Review of relevant legislation: aim: identify and remove factors preventing enterprises from using e-business. based on public consultation - launched by an e-business summit where high-level business representatives can report difficulties. * e-business is a challenge - by end 2003, the Commission will establish an European e-business support network: strengthen and co-ordinate actions in support of SMEs federate existing European, national and regional players e-business showcases to be distributed to SMEs * Meet the skills challenge - e skills conference promotion and transfer of ICT skills in e-business

Towards implementation Implemented through already existing programmes: MODINIS (ex-PROMISE), for benchmarking and BP actions IST through demonstration and support actions eTEN project funding from 10% to 30%. IDA, eContent, set up eEurope Steering Group Both benchmarking and promoting best practices are central to the eEurope 2005 approach. Benchmarking was pioneered in eEurope 2002. The focus is measurable outputs. The process involves: defining and then using a series of indicators to measure the development of the Information Society, and then reflecting the findings in policy. To ensure we are comparing like with like, the Commission will propose a legal basis for European Information Society statistics before the end of the year. The benchmarking results will also help us identify best practices. The analysis and dissemination of these best practices is critical to ensure that, for example, the many hundreds of local authorities across Europe do not all reinvent the local e-government wheel.

IS & Regional Development IS is a priority for Structural Funds Significant effort in 2000-2006 programmes with in line with e-Europe priorities 400 Meuros of ERDF dedicated to Innovative Actions Results achieved so far 4.6% of ERDFs invested in IS (6BEuro). 61 Regional Information Society Programmes Launching of a network IANIS (www.erisa.be) IST DG INFSO AND DG REGIO co-operation with establishment of a working group giving specific input to the Innovative Action programme priority definitions. The 80% of European regions presented a proposal at Innovative Actions in the programme 2001-2002 and 61 regions have IS asmain priority. Information Society is a priority for Structural Funds programme covering the period 2000-2006 and a significant effort has been done for Objective 1 regions. The current ERDF mainstream of obj 1 and 2 regions programmes is mainly targeted at reducing the gap in “classical” infrastructure with IS not yet as main priority. The regional approaches span form IS as transversal priority to IS specific Operational Programmes like the examples of Portugal and Greece. In these particular cases EU support PT with 1.2BEuros and GR with 1.7bEuros. SMEs are target group in Innovative Actions at local level.

More information eEurope2005: http://europa.eu.int/eeurope Innovative Actions: http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/index_en.htm Both benchmarking and promoting best practices are central to the eEurope 2005 approach. Benchmarking was pioneered in eEurope 2002. The focus is measurable outputs. The process involves: defining and then using a series of indicators to measure the development of the Information Society, and then reflecting the findings in policy. To ensure we are comparing like with like, the Commission will propose a legal basis for European Information Society statistics before the end of the year. The benchmarking results will also help us identify best practices. The analysis and dissemination of these best practices is critical to ensure that, for example, the many hundreds of local authorities across Europe do not all reinvent the local e-government wheel.