EU too slow with high-speed tech
The European Commission urged European Union (EU) countries to be more ambitious in harnessing technologies such as increasingly ubiquitous broadband Internet, new telecoms breakthroughs and digital broadcasting to drive growth.
"Europe’s policies for the digital economy have made some progress, but I do not think that this is good enough," said EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, presenting a report on a revised EU growth initiative.
"It is worrying that in ICT (information and communication technologies) research, Europe continues to lag behind its competitors, investing about half as much as the US," she added.
Under a so-called i-2010 strategy agreed last year, all 25 EU states pledged to identify research and innovation policies as a key priority in national economic reform programmes.
"But…the national reform programmes fail to give a new impetus to information society policies or to cover drivers of growth such as the convergence of digital networks, content and devices," said the commission.
Reding lamented that information and communications technologies are today contributing less to European productivity growth than they did 10 years ago.
"I call on EU leaders to develop a stronger sense of urgency in their national reform programmes and also not to shy away from cross-border competition in the telecom sector.
"Only through stronger investment in ICT research and effective cross-border competition will we ensure that the great potential of ICT is used to lift our competitive performance across the economy," she added.
Economic growth in the EU improved in 2005 and is forecast to be around two percent in 2006.
But this is still well below the annual GDP growth of 2.7 percent in the US in 2000-2005.
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