Denmark to Focus on Digital Single Market, Green IT Issues During Its Presidency
"The Single Market is the largest economic driving force in the EU,” and the single digital market will be one of several top issues for Denmark during its Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which began Jan. 1, it said Friday. The presidency plans to continue work on removing legislative and administrative barriers to a digital single market by, among other things, improving conditions for e-commerce, cutting roaming prices, and reusing public information for development of new digital services, it said. Creating a common standardization system for new technologies and ensuring “green” information technologies (IT) are also key priorities, it said.
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The presidency will “generally prioritise areas that support the development of the digital single market,” its program, “Europe at work,” said. In particular, mobile roaming rates must be brought down to approach national prices for messaging, voice and data services “without removing the incentive for innovation and growth in the EU telecom industry.” Denmark’s six-month term will also include helping to reach European broadband rollout targets, and support for broadband and digital services under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) will be an “important theme” in the Council of Ministers, it said.
Specific negotiations include revising the rules on reuse of public sector information and electronic signatures, the presidency said. Other digital agenda topics are digitization and online access to cultural and creative material and digital preservation, it said. Denmark will continue trying to raise the visibility of the broad potential the cultural and creative sector holds for growing the economy by prioritizing work on the “Creative Europe” program, it said.
Unlike in many other countries, Denmark’s telecom minister is also responsible for internal market issues. That is a “great advantage” to the presidency, said Minister for Business and Growth Ole Sohn. It allows him to take an overall approach to the digital agenda that encompasses broadband access, roaming and single market issues such as procurement, alternative dispute resolution, standardization and e-trade -- all important building blocks for a single digital market, he told us.
Another major initiative will be to create a green Europe, the presidency said. Green IT priorities are generally integrated in other policy issues such as green energy, public procurement and digitization, all of which are important priorities of the Danish government, said Morten Ellegaard, head of division of the Agency for Digitization, part of the Finance Ministry.
The presidency aims to push forward negotiations on the EC’s energy infrastructure proposal, which will include the future role of smart grids, Ellegaard told us. In the area of public procurement, Denmark will propose legislation to provide more room for environmental considerations in public contracts for such items as IT equipment, he said.
Revamping the electronic signatures directive should cut down on the amount of traditional mail that must be transported across Europe, leading to CO2 reductions, Ellegaard said. And revising rules for reuse of public sector data should open the door to a variety of applications, some of which are “likely to be green,” he said. The presidency will co-host a green ICT conference in Brussels in late March, he said. Its focus will be how to measure ICT carbon and energy footprints and smart cities, he said.
The agenda also envisions work on intellectual property rights enforcement issues. Governments will follow up on a European Commission proposal for dealing with orphan works, whose authors aren’t known or can’t be located, the presidency said. It will try to move ahead on the issue of a unitary EU patent, and launch council talks on improving and strengthening the European trademark system, it said.
The Fiber to the Home Council Europe is happy that Denmark has put the CEF high on its priority list, said council Director General Hartwig Tauber. Using CEF funds to ensure rollout of ultra-high speed broadband is very important in the current economic climate, he told us. The level of finance should be maintained or increased from the amount that’s been proposed, and it’s also crucial to decide how to allocate it, he said. The FTTH Council is “very positive that Denmark with its long experience of FTTH deployments will ensure good progress” during its term, he said.
Achieving the digital agenda and accelerating deployment of high-speed broadband networks should be the key underlying priority of the Danish Presidency, said European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association Acting Director Thierry Dieu. But to do that, the right conditions for private investment -- more targeted, consistent and proportionate regulation -- must be in place, he said. The presidency should also focus on harmonizing data protection rules so all players offering online services to EU customers are playing by the same privacy rules, he said.
Finding a long-term solution for roaming and funding possibilities for European future broadband highways are both very important, said European Competitive Telecommunications Association Public Affairs Manager Federico Poggi. ECTA’s mobile challengers want upcoming revisions to the roaming regulation to allow operators to voluntarily reduce their roaming charges as an alternative to de-coupling roaming from domestic services, he said. And “in a year when there are many competing demands on public resources,” ECTA also hopes the council will prioritize funding for open and future-proof fiber networks, which “should deliver economic rewards in the long run,” he said.