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ONE OF THE BIG successes of the European Union's programme to get online has been the Netd@ys event. For the past three years a week has been designated where Internet projects link up different Member States with innovative use of the web. The accent is on youth as the Youth programme of the EU helps to finance the event as well as the Leonardo training and Socrates education funds. However business and community groups can participate along with schools, universities, youth organisations, vocational training and cultural centres. This year there will be international link-ups, virtual art exhibitions and concerts, interactive games and competitions. Participants will be able to join video conferences and make virtual visits to cinemas. As well as these general activities specific 'umbrella' projects are funded by both the private and public sectors.
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An example of a project, which is taking place in London, is Rise Phoenix InterLynx which involves a 'creative exchange of stories, images, and ideas between children in the Balkans and in North London. Participants in the Balkans work with performance poets and storytellers to develop ideas which are emailed to participants in London. Professional musicians and dancers help to bring these stories alive and develop images with the children in London to be made into animation. These final animations can be accessed by all participants via the Rise Phoenix website'. The event has grown rapidly since its inception in 1997 and at last year's Netd@ys there were 5 million visits to its website and. 150,000 educational and cultural organisations, in 35 countries, participated in it. |
The addresses of Web Sites mentioned on this page are as follows:
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The site with details of the new environmental programme: |
THE EUROPEAN UNION competition commissioner, Mario Monti, recently went to New York to emphasise that the 'new economy' of e-commerce needed regulation so that it could develop smoothly. There has been some criticism in the United States recently that EU regulators are stifling technological innovation and discriminating against US firms in favour of European rivals. They point to the recent blocking of the merger between WorldCom and Sprint.
Mr. Monti, however, replied that without proper regulation monopolies could spring up and 'even temporary market power can be a serious concern, particularly when it may have a negative impact on the levels of innovation and consumer choice in a given market'. Recent mergers and consolidations in the media and telecommunications industries have stimulated fears of monopoly power and the commissioner said that the rules may have to be changed to deal with this. The EU is not the only authority which is objecting to some of these deals, the United States department of Justice is pursuing Microsoft and is suspicious of the WorldCom merger while the Federal Trade Commission is likely to block that between AOL and Time Warner which Commissioner Monti approved.
THE DIRECTORATE OF the European Commission which is concerned with the environment has posted several new web pages. Documents on such topics as the new environmental action programme, environmental taxes in Member States and the White Paper on environmental liability are available in both portable document and web page format.
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of the web page of Netd@ys 2000 
