The European Commission has on 19 May 2010 adopted the Europe's Digital Agenda. This important document provides a framework for the European Union's future policies related to the Internet and other communications technologies. It is part of the Europe 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The objective of the Digital Agenda for Europe is to ensure that the economic, social and cultural potential of ICT is exploited to the maximum.
The Digital Agenda outlines seven priority areas for action
According to this Communication, "The Digital Agenda identifies where Europe needs to focus its efforts to put this virtuous cycle in motion. The Agenda outlines seven priority areas for action:
• creating a digital single market
• improving the framework conditions for interoperability between ICT products and services
• boosting internet trust and security
• guaranteeing the provision of much faster internet access
• encouraging investment in research and development
• enhancing digital literacy, skills and inclusion
• applying ICT to address social challenges such as climate change, rising healthcare costs and the ageing population".
For each of the above mentioned priority areas a number of measures will be put into place or proposed over the next 2-3 years, leading to follow-up actions up to 2015. The initiative should develop further over the next 10 years in order to achieve the targets set in the Europe 2020 Strategy. To achieve these goals, the Commission is committed to work closely with national governments, concerned organisations and companies.
Importance for broadcasters
The Digital Agenda does not specifically address audiovisual and media policies. However, a number of assumptions and proposed policy initiatives are implicitly relevant for public service broadcasting. While a fast Internet access has a great potential for delivery of media services, it is important to ensure that access to these new networks is open and unrestricted. Interoperability is equally important for broadcasters and the public. Furthermore, the European spectrum policy should reflect the complementary nature of broadcasting and broadband taking account of the specific national circumstances in the EU Member countries.
In addition, the Commission is asked to propose an ambitious European Spectrum Policy Programme specifically targeting the increase of the efficiency of spectrum management in order to ensure a coordinated allocation of spectrum to meet the target of 100% coverage of 30 mbps internet by 2020. This may have impact in the use of the UHF spectrum allocated to broadcasting services and open the door for a second Digital Dividend. The full text of the Digital Agenda is available here.