JOINT LETTER ON THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET
28.05.2010
Dear colleagues,
We will meet on 17 June to set the groundwork to improve Europe’s competitiveness.
We look forward to finalising the Europe 2020 strategy. Our overall targets are set,
and we are in the process of identifying the main bottlenecks hampering our growth
and creation of new jobs.
Growth and productivity are to a large extent the result of the use of information and
communication technologies. The Digital Agenda is a crucial project for Europe’s
prosperity, which should be implemented with a sense of urgency and ambition. The
Commission’s recent communication on the Digital Agenda is a welcome basis for
this work.
In the digital space the EU functions as 27 separate markets. This is the underlying
reason why all the leading companies in the field (Amazon, Google) are American,
not European. The problem is not the quality of national legislation, but the simple
burden of having numerous different rulebooks. We believe that progress should be
made in securing transparency and easy and efficient copyright management for the
whole EU-market. Consumer policy should facilitate and encourage electronic
commerce. Legislation on electronic commerce needs to be modernised and public
sector information should be made freely available by 2015 to encourage new
businesses that thrive on its use.
The Internal Market remains a core achievement of the Union – a strong single
market of 500 million people is the foundation of its economic strength. This market,
however, does not function in the digital space.
We need a new approach – a framework where companies and consumers are free
to operate in the digital market place throughout the Union. Only then can we grasp
the full benefits of the digital century and assume leadership in the global digital
economy. By extending the main principles governing our internal market to the
economic activities that take place in the digital space, we can achieve the goals we
have set in the framework of the 2020 strategy.
We call for the June European Council to make a strong commitment to create a truly
single and secure digital market for European consumers and providers, where
services (both public and private) and goods can move freely in digital space. This
should be reflected in the conclusions as a comprehensive program that includes all
relevant policies together with an ambitious time-table for its realization.
Lars Løkke RASMUSSEN
Prime Minister of Denmark
Andrus ANSIP
Prime Minister of Estonia
Matti VANHANEN
Prime Minister of Finland
Jan Peter BALKENENDE
Prime Minister of the Netherlands