Declaration of Athens on the Information Society
Representatives of 20 European governments gathered in Athens this month to review the developments of information and communications technologies and their implications for society. Delegates invited by the President of the Greek Parliament Apostolos Kaklamanis, welcomed the idea behind the Commission's eEurope initiative of an inclusive Information Society for all, and highlighted the need to develop skills to take advantage of the new technologies. Parliamentarians committed themselves to understand better the structural changes that will come about with the new information and communications technologies, and promised to focus political action on the issues of trust, confidence, security and crime prevention. In the field of e-commerce, delegates expressed the need to establish 'quality labels' for products and services commercially available on the Web to ensure consumer protection. They said some form of regulation is required over the use of personal data identifying a consumer, but warned against over-regulation. A lack of IT qualifications currently explains the 500,000 vacancies in Europe, and participants said initiatives are urgently needed to address the skills gap. They suggested all primary schools should be equipped with PCs and both teachers and pupils should be trained to use them. Participants also agreed that university courses should be better adapted to reflect the needs of the Information Society, and more research is needed to identify exactly what is required. Furthermore the retraining of people already in work will need more attention and resources. The event, which took place in Athens on 3 and 4 February, was supported by the European Parliament's Research Initiative Com Project, an ICT project funded by the European Commission. The aims of EPRI Com are to inform Members of the European Parliament, national and regional parliamentarians and other political decision-makers in Europe and in the Central and Eastern European countries about topics and issues related to the development of the Information Society and to the process of enlargement.
Kraje
Greece