Council underlines need for information society strategy
The EU's telecoms ministers underlined, on 10 June, the 'need to prepare strategic orientations in the information society area to feed the Lisbon Strategy,' The EU's Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council reviewed both the update to the eEurope 2005 Action Plan and the Commission's communication on national broadband strategies, and welcomed the content of both. The main aim of the updated eEurope 2005 Action Plan is to fine tune existing actions whilst strengthening the implementation mechanisms so as to speed up progress in five key areas: broadband, online services, e-business, e-inclusion and benchmarking. The national broadband strategies review indicates that the EU-15 have now all drawn up strategies. In response to this, the Council noted that guidelines on the use of Structural Funds in electronic communications should be followed in order to ensure that competition is not distorted, and that private commercial incentives are not thwarted. The Council invited Member States to put these strategies in place by the end of 2004, and to review them by the end of 2005.