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During their informal meeting in Granada, Spain on 18-20 April 2010, the EU telecom and information society Ministers approved the “Granada Declaration” for the new digital agenda in Europe.



Recognizing ICT as a crucial factor for economic growth, employment, sustainability and social integration, the Ministers agreed on the following central topics to be key elements of a new digital strategy for Europe:



- Infrastructure: EU countries must adopt specific measures to meet the target of 100% coverage of basic broadband to all citizens by 2013 and the wide take-up of high speed broadband by 2020. Competition between providers and the implementation of a regulatory regime for an efficient investment in infrastructures and services are supposed to be the means to promote the rollout of next generation high-speed networks.

- Competitiveness: The Council wants to strengthen the competitiveness of Europe’s ICT sector by focusing on research, development and innovation through programmes that are better adapted to the special characteristics of ICT firms, particularly SMEs. Moreover, the Ministers want to especially support R&D in areas such as health, green mobility, energy efficiency, future internet and cloud computing.

- International dimension of ICT: The EU wants to strengthen the ICT sector’s international dimension, e.g. in the field of internet governance or the development ofinternational norms.



- Benchmarking: New reliable indicators on information society that are adaptable to the technological development should be developed. These indicators should be aligned with similar benchmarking to that of international organizations like the ITU or OECD.



Other key elements of the digital agenda are the advanced use of the internet and trust; user rights; the development of the digital single market and the promotion of digital public services.



UNI europa welcomes the Granada Declaration in so far as it shows that EU Ministers acknowledge the need for more investment in high speed networks and broadband coverage for all citizens. However, promoting competition between broadband providers and trusting the market alone does not seem to be the right approach. UNI europa wants to highlight that a European digital strategy for investment and innovation has to be balanced by the appropriate labour market policies in order to boost job creation and ensure social standards.



For more information about the declaration, please visit the website of the Spanish EU Presidency:

http://www.eu2010.es/en/documentosynoticias/noticias/abr19telec.html