CeBIT 2012: Neelie Kroes Promises 9m Euros For Digital Single Market

In an address at CeBIT 2012, Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, reiterated her support the development of a true “digital single market”, ahead of a meeting of a panel of e-government experts.

At the opening of the giant trade show in Hanover, Ms Kroes  the importance of “e-governance”, and asked for all parties to agree on a list of cross-border services to be put online before 2015.

Cross border services by 2015

“We must ensure that all citizens and businesses can benefit from the work accomplished within the framework of large-scale pilot projects. We need to ensure their technical and financial viability,” said Kroes.

To do this, she proposes to allocate more than 9 billion euros to the development of digital infrastructure, including high-speed networks and interconnected utilities for tasks such procurement, identification, health and e-Justice. The Connecting Europe Facility fund has a total budget of 40 billion euros, plus 10 billion euros from the Cohesion Fund.

The European Digital Agenda was set out in 2010, and has included moves towards better infrastructure, such as 4G broadband, and a bid to curb mobile roaming charges.

Kroes has argued for the creation and strengthening of European cloud computing suppliers, and promised a cloud computing strategy within Europe by the summer, to build on the existing European Cloud Partnership.  

This story was developed from an article on silicon.fr.

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