Parliament discusses European Information Society
The European Parliament adopted four reports on the Information Society in Europe at its meeting in Brussels on 26 June 1997. The reports, drafted in the Committee on Economic Affairs and Industrial Policy, give Parliament's response to a number of recent Commission initiatives in the field. Parliament approved the Commission's proposal for a Community programme to stimulate the establishment of the Information Society in Europe, subject to a number of amendments. These concern, in the main, procedural matters relating to the implementation of the programme. One amendment calls for the establishment of an expert consultation group to assist the advisory committee, to be made up of national civil servants and a Commission representative. Parliament's opinion will now be delivered to the Council, which will take the final decision on the programme. Other reports adopted by the Parliament concern recent Commission communications: - "The Information Society: From Corfu to Dublin - The new priorities" and "The implications of the Information Society for EU policies" (COM(96) 395); - "Europe at the forefront of the Global Information Society: Rolling Action Plan" (COM(96) 607); - "Standardization and the Global Information Society: The European approach" (COM(96) 359); - "Learning in the Information Society: Action plan for a European education initiative" (COM(96) 471). The first two communications set out the Commission's policies for the development of the Information Society in Europe in the next few years. MEPs recognized that Europe must be at the centre of development in the Information Society, which will both create higher standards of living and increase wealth. Parliament's main concern is to ensure that the societal effects of the development of the Information Society are fully understood and addressed. The reports acknowledge that the Commission has put much greater emphasis on this aspect than in the past, and welcomes this. The report on the communication on standardization states that standardization is above all a vital component in ensuring the competitiveness of European industry at a global scale, and calls for increased efforts to be devoted to the process. The report on the action plan for learning in the Information Society calls for greater impetus to be given to the drive to connect schools to each other using the Internet, and to incorporate the new tools in teaching and learning. It welcomes the Commission's approach of improving coordination between the range of Community programmes and initiatives, suggesting that this will improve efficiency and lead to optimal use of the available resources.