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EUROPEAN REVIEW

ISSUE 35 - Page 8

AS INTERNET TAKE-UP AND NOW BROADBAND connections have mushroomed over the past few years, the EU authorities have begun to worry about something called e-Inclusion. While broadband subscribers in the EU now outnumber those in the US and 90% of urban areas are connected, only 60% of rural regions have this facility. Only 10% of those over 65 use any form of the Internet while only 3% of public web sites comply with accessibility standards thus disadvantaging disabled people. Along with unemployed people, the EU has identified these groups with the ‘30 to 40 percent of Europeans not benefiting from the information society’. Major reasons for this include lack of access, lack of affordability, hard-to-use technology, and lack of motivation and IT skills.
Member States meeting in Latvia wanted to remedy this situation so they signed the ‘Riga declaration’ which aims, by 2010, to halve the gap in internet usage between the general population and disadvantaged groups, increase broadband coverage to 90% over the whole EU and ensure that all public web sites follow the accessibility standards. As both the numbers of older people and those with disabilities is forecast to rise in the coming years, the EU Commission also wants to ensure that people can stay productive at work and live independently at home for as long as possible.
Turning to differences between countries, the Commission has found a wide divergence in the penetration of both the Internet in general and broadband in particular. In the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Belgium and Sweden broadband already accounts for 20% of all Internet connections or more.  But in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and all of the new EU Member States, except Estonia, broadband's share is still below 10%. In at least 6 EU Member States a majority of the adult population have no computer skills at all (see stats on page 9). According to EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding ‘Enabling all Europeans to participate on equal terms in the information society is not only a social necessity - it is a huge economic opportunity for industry. By implementing their Riga undertakings, European countries will take a big step towards making e-
Inclusion a reality’.


eGovernment takes big leap forward

THE LATEST SURVEY OF THE AVAILABILITY OF PUBLIC SERVICES online has revealed an increase of about 10% since October 2004 which was the last time figures were compiled. This applies to both the proportion of services online and their level of sophistication i.e. progressing from simply downloading forms to full two-way interaction. The ‘new’ Member States show the greatest progress with Malta jumping from joint 13th to 3rd in the chart above and Estonia in second place. Businesses are more likely to benefit from ‘full availability’ with two thirds of the government services that they use being in that category compared with one third for individuals.