SPEECH/08/120
José Manuel Durão Barroso
President of the European Commission ICT Industry has a Major Role to Play in the European Economy of the 21st Century
CeBIT Trade Fair Hannover, 3 March 2008
Sehr geehrte Frau Bundeskanzlerin, liebe Angela,
Monsieur le Président, cher Nicolas,
Herr Ministerpräsident Wulff,
Mr Ballmer,
Herr Professor Scheer,
sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
Es ist für mich eine grosse Freude, heute gemeinsam mit Ihnen in Hannover die CeBIT 2008 (zweitausendacht) zu eröffnen. Nicht allein die Redner heute Abend demonstrieren, dass diese CeBIT ein grosses Ereignis für Niedersachsen, für Deutschland, Frankreich, Europa, ja international ist. Ihre starke Präsenz hier auf dieser Messe in den kommenden Tagen ist die eigentliche Story. Wegen Ihnen bin ich heute hier, und freue mich, kurz zu Ihnen zu sprechen.
Bitte erlauben Sie mir jetzt, auf Englisch fortzufahren. Das ist erträglicher für die, die Englisch sprechen. Und das ist auch erträglicher für die, die Deutsch sprechen.
The Information Communications Technology in short - ICT - industry is a motor for our economies and for our joint prosperity. It accounts for 5 to 6% of total GDP in the EU and continues to grow steadily. It is a major force in driving growth and innovation. The ICT industry has therefore a major role to play in the European economy of the 21st century. An ambitious ICT policy for Europe is central to EU policies for competitiveness, growth and sustainable development. ICT is crucial to the success of the EU Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs, and vice versa.
Our common European Lisbon strategy is giving a boost to our economies by modernising them and investing in the knowledge economy. This strategy is working and shows concrete results. Europe is in better shape than it was just two years ago. But we must now take our strategy a step further, to enhance the Union's competitiveness. This is what the European Commission will propose at the spring European Council in ten days time.
We are looking for very specific progress in four areas, which, by the way, concern you directly:
1) First, investing in human capital and modernising the labour market. Many of your companies, whatever their size, desperately need to attract and recruit skilled staff. We are talking here about higher education reforms, modernising universities, and easier access for highly-skilled people to national labour markets. In other words, we must do more to better exploit the full potential of the 'knowledge triangle': education, research and innovation.
2) Secondly, we will further improve the business environment. We are working on a European Small Business Act by the middle of the year, to foster the development and growth of the millions of SMEs which create nine out of ten new jobs.
In particular, we want to support research-performing and innovative SMEs with high growth potential, for example through a new European private company statute, by facilitating access to finance, and bringing innovative SMEs together in clusters.
3) Thirdly, in the knowledge triangle, the overall 3% target for national GDP investment in research remains more valid than ever. This year, the Commission will present proposals towards what I call the "fifth freedom" of the European Single Market – namely the free movement of knowledge – which includes the respect of intellectual property rights and the mobility and career prospects of researchers, thus creating a genuine European Research Area.
And we will intensify our efforts to increase broadband penetration. We will invite Member States to draw up national broadband strategies and set national targets for high-speed internet use aiming at a 30% connection rate for the EU population and connections for all schools by 2010. It goes without saying that using the digital dividend will enormously help achieve this target.
4) Fourthly, we set ourselves ambitious targets for energy and climate change, but I will come back to this later.
2008 will thus be an important year, with major decisions on priorities for ICT research, innovation and deployment. We see the emergence of the next generation Internet, ICT components and applications, and of new mobile services. All are areas where we want to see Europe in the lead.
The benefits of ICT innovation spread across the whole of society and economy, having a direct impact on our competitiveness: electronic Government, electronic commerce, eBusiness, e-invoicing, e-accounting, e-Health to name just a few.
All these improvements only work if we have both a proper legal framework and a proper infrastructure: To avoid legal complications across borders. To have online orders and payments protected. And to ensure that broadband and mobile networks work seamlessly across borders.
It is to ensure that these possibilities are made real that the Commission has recently adopted proposals for reform in electronic communications.
We found that in order to ensure that we reap the full benefits of the single market with its half a billion consumers, we need to level the playing field for operators and achieve greater consistency in regulation across the EU.
The proposals we have made are grouped around three main pillars:
First, Consumer protection and users' rights: European competition policy and telecoms liberalisation have given Europe's consumers more choice and better products at lower prices. However, further safeguards are needed to protect their rights, to ensure that citizens can access services regardless of their location or social condition, and to ensure that the infrastructure they use is trustworthy.
Second, Better regulation: We simplify and improve the quality of the regulatory environment by reducing the markets exposed to sector specific regulation from 18 to 7. We propose to strengthen the independence of national regulators and to give them, on an optional basis, the additional remedy of functional separation of incumbents' networks and services to tackle persistent competition problems where needed.
In addition, access to radio spectrum will be simplified. More flexible allocation of frequencies will allow us to exploit the full potential of more services.
The third pillar concerns the completion of the single market. The existing model of cooperation among national regulators is not producing optimal results for the single market. That is why we have proposed a genuine European structure to deal with cross-border regulation.
This body would work in close cooperation with national regulators and with the Commission. It will increase coherence among national regulators in tackling persisting bottlenecks across Europe. Our proposals are now under debate. But we are open for compromise ideas provided they improve coherence in the Internal Market and guarantee regular gulatory security for investments.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I already briefly mentioned the climate and sustainability challenge, and here too, we want Europe to lead in addressing this challenge, not least through the use of ICT.
The energy and climate policy we are proposing will require efforts, but will imply huge opportunities too, for all sectors. European business, and the ICT sector in particular, will be key partners in the new environment that will emerge.
Just as ICT has contributed to welfare and growth, it also has a major role to play in greening the European economy, in improving energy efficiency and lowering emissions.
Europe must more than double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, for example. There is tremendous untapped potential in using ICT for adding intelligence to components, products, equipment and services, and for addressing barriers and market failures.
First, ICT can substitute for physical products by using online services, moving business to the internet and adopting new ways of working, like video-conferencing.
Second, the ICT sector itself must clean up its own act. The carbon footprint of the ICT sector is small but growing. I believe the ICT industries are ready to set a good example, and I am encouraged by recent developments.
But the real gains will come from ICT as an enabler to improve energy efficiency across the economy. ICT matters for energy reduction, especially in transport and the energy intensive sectors.
In the energy generation, distribution and storage industry, overall potential savings of up to 40% are considered possible.
ICT’s ability to organize and innovate is a key factor. We see whole cities like Gothenburg in Sweden moving their local electricity grid towards a smart "Internet of Energy", with self-organizing online sensors and controls which monitor and optimize the energy use. Needless to say, these developments also need to be backed up by our regulation reforms in energy and telecom.
The Commission itself is exploring voluntary agreements with industry, and we are supporting research and large-scale pilot projects on energy efficient public buildings. And the new European Institute of Innovation and Technology will also be heavily involved in this area.
A Commission Communication on Energy Efficiency through ICTs is under way. It will spell out in more detail the messages I am giving here today.
Europe needs all stakeholders to sign up to the goal of better energy efficiency to achieve sustainable growth. With smart use of smart technologies, we can all be winners in the transition to an energy-efficient, sustainable knowledge based society.
So it is also your turn to seize these opportunities and to participate in innovation and research to tackle climate change.
The ICT sector is crucial to the huge forward-looking project we are embarking upon with our climate policy. This will be a driving force for many decades. It will open up horizons we cannot even imagine at this stage. I urge you to join us in this venture.
Herzlichen Dank, und Ihnen allen viel Erfolg auf der CeBIT 2008.
