Feedback to eEurope mailbox
Less than 200 responses were received by the eEurope mailbox in response to an invitation from the Information Society Directorate-General to comment on the action lines proposed by the eEurope initiative. The analysis concludes: 'General responses to the initiative supported its aims and underlined the need for political leadership from the top'. Commission officials were pleased to receive responses from most applicant countries showing 'the Countries of Eastern and Central Europe to be enthusiastic to benefit from the new economy.' However the overall number of responses received was fairly low, perhaps owing to the novelty of the mailbox system and low Internet penetration in several Member States. The inputs to the mailbox did underline the need for an improvement in electronic access to public information. The most frequent topic was the difficulty in downloading the eEurope documents, and the eEurope team are looking at ways to address this. Comments were received an all action lines including education, Internet access, e-commerce, research networks, smart cards, risk capital, eParticpation, healthcare online, intelligent transport and government online. Regarding e-commerce, many industrialists recommended speeding up of the introduction of the e-commerce regulatory framework, and developing non-regulatory or co-regulatory options. Consumer organisations stressed the need to develop structures to encourage consumer confidence and called for greater emphasis on standardisation.