European Ministerial Conference on Global Information Networks
Two publications containing the declarations and speeches made during the European Ministerial Conference on global information networks held in Bonn, in July 1997, are now available. The conference held wide-ranging discussions on the development of information networks in Europe and agreed on a number of key principles to ensure rapid growth. Participants included ministers from the Member States of the EU and the EFTA countries, Central and Eastern European countries, and Cyprus, Canada, Japan, Russia and the United States of America. The conference was structured with four plenary sessions for all participants, then separate meetings for ministers, industrialists, and users' groups to prepare their respective statements which were issued separately and are contained in the volume entitled "Declarations". A copy of the theme paper, published by the European Commission and the German Government, which provided the basis for the discussions during the conference is also provided. The plenary sessions dealt with issues covering building confidence, empowering the user, content issues and electronic commerce issues. For each plenary session, there were around seven speakers who addressed the theme prior to the open discussion and copies of the speeches are published separately.