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Connecting with my Young Advisers

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
I meet my young advisers....

I meet some of Europe's most energetic & thoughtful entrepreneurs...

Yesterday, I had my second meeting with some “Young Advisers” – a group of young Europeans on the front line of the Digital Agenda – from commerce to education and science. The digital revolution – with the right support – will lift Europe out of this crisis. And connecting with this kind of real-life experience is essential if the Digital Agenda is to succeed.

What a lot of energy and focus in one room! They certainly weren’t shy in coming forward and telling me not just what we did well, but what we can do better – exactly what I was hoping for.

So what did I learn? Well, it’s clear that for the younger generation the crisis is changing the jobs landscape – it’s now a place where comfortable public sector jobs are no longer an easy option; online opportunities are offering a real and attractive alternative. But we – the EU and Member State governments – need to make it easier. Read the full entry

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Cloud computing: building a European cloud partnership

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Last week I was in Davos at the World Economic Forum. A chance to speak with many interesting people and gain a lot of real insight about trends in the wider world.

You can read my impressions from some of those meetings elsewhere on this blog .

But a principal reason for being there was to announce an exciting new initiative on cloud computing – the European Cloud Partnership. An important step forward to making the EU not just cloud friendly, but cloud-active. Here’s my announcement in detail:

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Making it easier to buy online: our action plan for e-Commerce

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Are you one of the 40% of Europeans who purchases online each year?

If so you’re probably aware of the benefits of doing so – but also of some disadvantages. Online shopping and services can mean better choice, easier to use, easier to compare prices: all in all, better value for consumers. But some will worry about issues like, how can I pay for my product safely? If it’s a physical product, will it be delivered in time (and intact)? And what do I do if there’s a problem with the order? Others, unable to find the content they want lawfully, may turn to illegal content.

(L-R) Myself, Commr Barnier, Commr Dalli launching the e-Commerce action plan

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Defending media pluralism in Hungary*

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Media freedom and pluralism in question

A magyar szöveg – itt (PDF itt). For Hungarian text – read here.
(*Please feel free to reproduce this post in part or in full for your own website or publication, with attribution of the author)

Over recent weeks serious questions have been asked by the European Commission about 30 new laws in Hungary, including a major constitutional revision, and these concerns continue. These laws have passed against the backdrop of a media law adopted in late 2010, which was found by the European Commission to put fundamental rights at risk, and by the Hungarian courts to breach the Hungarian constitution.

The European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights clearly states that “the freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected,” and the EU has always stood up for media freedom and pluralism. Both the European Commission and I have defended press freedom and fundamental rights from the outset of the intense debate in Hungary over a year ago.

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New IANA contract details published: encouraging news for the future of the Internet

Monday, November 14th, 2011

In case you missed it, late last week came significant news for Internet governance, as the US government launched tender documents for the next Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract.

You’d be forgiven if you don’t know what that means! But in reality, this contract is central to how the Internet works and how it is run. The contractor is ultimately responsible, together with others like the regional Internet registries, for managing key resources which underpin the Internet, so that when you type a domain name into your browser it connects to the right IP address and ultimately the right website. The IANA contract is currently held by an organisation called ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), and is due to expire in March.

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Connecting Europe: Commission offers broadband a boost of €50-100 billion

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

It’s my dream to get Every European Digital. And that means everyone needs to be covered by fast broadband connections.

The economic benefits are clear: increasing broadband penetration by just 10 percentage points can boost GDP by 0.9 – 1.5%. But we face problems in delivering new networks: insufficient investment, problems in accessing capital, and a weak business case for operators to roll out everywhere. And we also face difficulty in making online public services available across Europe.

So the European Commission has today proposed a boost which could leverage total broadband investment between €50 and €100 billion, and will also provide funding for pan-European digital public services. Read the full entry

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I propose a “Compact for the Internet”

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Today I had the pleasure of speaking at the OECD’s High-Level Meeting on the Internet Economy. It is a chance for people across the world – from the US and Japan to Mexico and South Africa – to get together and talk about the challenges we are facing.

From how to deliver broadband for all, to how to keep the Internet open.

I spoke about my view of what matters on the Internet. There’s been a lot of discussion recently about principles which do, or should, underpin the network. The G8 recently agreed a few – principles like openness, freedom, non-discrimination and respect for human rights. Other bodies, including the OECD itself, are also developing their own. Read the full entry

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The first-ever Digital Agenda Assembly

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Me getting some tips from my young advisers

We’re just approaching the end of our first ever Digital Agenda Assembly.  It’s been a fulfilling – if action-packed – couple of days.

For those of you who don’t know, the DAA is a staging post for the Agenda – one year after we launched it. So a chance to review what’s been done, and a chance to remind ourselves why the project is so important; a “State of the Digital Union”. Read the full entry

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Testing Ipv6 today

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Currently only 2% of all Internet traffic is IPv6 compatible. Major companies and organisations across the world, including the European Commission, are offering their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour “test flight” today  to raise awareness about the need to deploy IPv6 as soon as possible.

The internet has been growing at a very fast pace in the last few years. Two billion people are now connected to the internet worldwide and the number of gadgets that will connect to the internet in the future will be even larger. We are in for a steep curve of demand for Internet Protocol addresses to transmit data from billions of connected people and devices in the next 100 years.

However, we are facing the complete pool depletion of IPv4 addresses. The last remaining IPv4 address was assigned in February 2011. The uptake of IPv6 can remedy this situation by making available a practically unlimited amount of Internet addresses to support the explosive growth of our fridges, cars, smart phones and many other domestic appliances connecting to the internet. IPv6 will assure the growth of the future internet and give rise to a whole generation of new smart services. Moving from IPv4 to IPv6 is therefore essential to let the internet evolve and create new apps and services. It will offer many advantages including larger address, space, support for new mobile and wireless services and built-in security.

Join the movement on IPv6 World Day today!

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Taking stock of digital progress in the EU

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

It has been 1 year since I launched the Digital Agenda for Europe so it’s the perfect opportunity to tell you how we are delivering on our targets. I’ve made open data publicly available online about how the EU is performing.

I’m happy that overall progress is good. The Scoreboard shows that more and more Europeans are using the internet. 65% of citizens now use it at least weekly so we are nearing our target of 75% by 2015. Activities that usually are carried out offline are increasingly performed online. For example, one third of citizens now use internet banking and read the news online. The numbers of EU citizens shopping online and making use of public online services is also on the rise. In terms of getting Every European Digital, this is already a great achievement.

But there is still work to be done. 95% of Europeans now have access to broadband internet infrastructure. But that still leaves a lot of people – 10 million households, in fact – who we are still to reach to deliver our 2013 target.  So I’m still concerned about how are we going to deliver broadband for all. I am confident that we can reach our goal but we need to be open-minded and creative about the solutions. Terrestrial or satellite wireless networks for instance can step in where landline solutions become too expensive to cover large, rural areas.

There is a lot of food for thought in the Scoreboard and its implications will be further discussed in Brussels on June 16-17 at the Digital Agenda Assembly. And to all the data fans: you can play around with the data sets and statistics in the Scoreboard to carry out your own analysis and conclusions. Let me know what you come up with.

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