Poland to Pay Special Attention to E-Commerce During Its Presidency
A European single digital market is a key objective of Poland, which takes over the EU Presidency today (Friday), it said in a six-month program published in early June. The incoming presidency wants to complete the process of developing the single market, with “special attention” to development of electronic services and the abolition of barriers to cross-border Internet transactions, it said. Telecom, fiber-to-the-home and consumer electronics trade groups backed the focus on the single market. One consumer organization, however, urged Poland not to back European Commission plans for an entirely new system governing online sales transactions.
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Other Polish priorities include finalizing work on the European Network and Information Security Agency; ongoing talks with the European Parliament on Europe’s first five-year radio spectrum policy program; and forcing mobile roaming fees down, Polish Undersecretaries of State Magdalena Gaj and Piotr Kolodziejczyk said at a June 22 handover of items between Poland and the outgoing Hungarian Presidency. Universal service issues, net neutrality and satellite navigation system Galileo are also on the list, they said.
The digital agenda is on everyone’s mind because it’s seen as the best way to jump-start Europe’s sagging economy. Telecom network operators urged Poland to focus on spectrum, next-generation access network investment and a digital single market for content.
With telecom sector revenues slipping, the incoming presidency must support policies that encourage risky investment in new fast and ultra-fast networks, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association Thursday. It wants Poland to enable new business models to emerge that allow all players who generate data traffic to “contribute to the challenges ahead.” In addition, the presidency should try to ensure more targeted and appropriate regulations that take into account local competition realities and encourage risk-taking, ETNO said. More flexible pricing policies will let operators respond to consumer demands through differentiated retail offers, it said. ETNO also asked Poland to help create a true single market for online content by boosting broadband take-up and combating illegal file-swapping through simplified copyright licensing and better access to legitimate content.
Hungary focused on applications that will require high-speed broadband networks based on fiber, such as e-health initiatives, Fiber-to-the-Home Council Europe Director General Hartwig Tauber said Thursday. But it’s important to re-emphasize the need for EU members to develop national broadband plans to achieve digital agenda goals, he said. Decisions must be taken now to ensure the networks are available in 2020, he said. “Poland has the historical chance to position themselves as driver for the Digital Agenda during their presidency,” he said.
Poland is championing e-commerce policies, and underpinning that is its concentration on the single digital market, said Bridget Cosgrave, director general of DigitalEurope, which represents the information and communications technology and consumer electronics sectors. These are all positive signs, she said. The organization has already held talks with Denmark, which assumes the Presidency in January, and which also has a strong digital outlook and an ambitious agenda, she said. “We don’t see anyone dragging their feet,” she said.
It’s estimated that 60 percent of online transactions in Europe fail to complete because of legal barriers, Poland said in its statement of priorities. So work will begin under its presidency to create a “28th legal system” to make it easier to close sales transactions, it said. Efforts include a project to simplify potential Internet transactions, it said. The new set-up will run alongside the 27 different national regimes, it said.
This is a “very hot topic,” a European Consumers’ Association (BEUC) spokesman said Thursday. Essentially it’s an EU-wide contract system that will exist in parallel to national law, he said. The EC calls it an “optional instrument” for consumers, but it’s actually the seller who decides whether to use this or national law, he said. It’s a “loaded dice law we hope does not come to pass,” he said. “The Presidency will hopefully see the risks."
BEUC understands that the EU wants to change the fact that only 9 percent of online purchases are cross-border, “but confusing consumers by asking them to decide between national and EU legal protections is certainly not the means to do so,” he said. To recuperate from Europe’s market recession, “we need confidence, not confusion,” he said.
BEUC set out other demands in a memorandum for the Polish Presidency. They include maintaining current ISP exemption from liability and extending those protections to Web 2.0 service providers; recognizing net neutrality as a fundamental regulatory principle; and better data protection. Intellectual property enforcement rules shouldn’t be revised without an economic analysis of their impact on innovation and the development of the information society, it said. Internet Protocol addresses should be treated as personal data, and ISPs should not be forced to filter and block to enforce copyright, it said. Consumers also want a streamlined copyright management system that allows multi-territory and pan-European content licensing, it said.
Hungary attained its goals for the digital agenda, network and information security and spectrum policy, Minister of State for Infocommunication Zsolt Nyitrai told the European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy Committee June 16.