Echeverría pushes for open document exchange in e-business

European institutions often receive rather negative public attention and the European Parliament hardly gets appraised for all the good work it does to shape the digital future of Europe.

An example for the work that often stays unnoticed: today a report of MEP Echeverría (EPP) from Spain was adopted by the Strasbourg plenary. His report “on completing the internal market for e-commerce” addresses all the crucial points which businesses face in the digital environment. Among the topics the support of interoperability and open document formats for business communication. I am very excited.

Also Commissioner Neelie Kroes pushes along with her Digital Agenda and meets her tough deadlines. She wants a “a first class internet for Europe“. The long awaited radio spectrum proposal is among her deliverables.

Here Echeverría’s report for instance

43. Stresses the importance of open and neutral access to a high-speed internet connection, without which e-commerce would be impossible;

and finds

Digital Agenda for Europe sets reasonable performance targets for high-speed and ultra-fast broadband coverage and for e-commerce take-up

Parliament and the Commissioners are true movers and shakers for openness. When would the member states take the lesson and follow-up?

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

UFOs in the European Parliament

Seventeen MEPs signed so far a written declaration from Mario Borghezio (Lega Nord): on the declassification of documentation on UFOs.

…
1. Considers it essential to set up a scientific centre for the analysis and dissemination of the scientific data gathered to date by various European bodies and governments;
2. Calls for public archives on UFOs to be opened up and for records to be declassified by the Member States, thus providing the public and the mass media with access to the full range of documentation on the subject;
3. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Council, the Commission and the governments of the Member States.

I wonder why he does not go for the Cashman recast of regulation EC/1049/2001 (“Public Access to documents”) and their “protection of breeding sites of rare species”. 😉

.

Read Full Post »