European Union member states must become “more
ambitious” and develop a greater sense of urgency in their plans
for exploiting IT, the European Commission has urged in a critical
report.
In its first annual progress report on its i2010 strategy for IT
growth and jobs, the commission calls for European states to “step
up” efforts to improve access to broadband, facilitate Europe-wide
circulation of digital content and modernise public services.
Following the Commission’s June 2005 adoption of the i2010
strategy, EU member states had identified research and innovation
policies as a key priority in their national programmes.
But the Commission said the national programmes “fail to give a
new impetus to information society policies or to cover drivers of
growth such as the convergence of digital networks, content and
devices”.
Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for information society and
media, said, “Europe’s policies for the digital economy have made
some progress, but I do not think that this is good enough.”
She added, “It is worrying that in ICT research, Europe
continues to lag behind its competitors, investing about half as
much as the US. ICT is today contributing less to European
productivity growth than it did 10 years ago.”
Reding called on EU leaders to develop a “stronger sense of
urgency in their national reform programmes”.
The report notes that the European IT sector has continued to
achieve above-average growth, compared with the rest of the
economy, and was “still the EU’s most innovative and research
intensive sector” – accounting for 25% of the total EU research
effort and 5.6% of the GDP between 2000 and 2003. IT generated at
least 45% of EU productivity gains in 2000-2004.