European Content on the Global Networks

Introduction. In 1994, Martin Bangemann, then Vice-President of the European Commission, gathered a group of high level industrialists to try and formulate a strategy for a European way to the Information Society. The group gave clear indications: leave to the private sector a leading role for infrastructure, applications and content. The public sector has to facilitate the transformation of industry and consumers in three ways: create a vision, establish a clear, predictable and stable regulatory framework, e catalyse the experimentation. These complimentary roles have been at the root of the European policy to support the development and competitiveness of European industry since. In this paper the focus is not infrastructure development, but rather on multimedia content, a key sector for Europe, both in economic and social terms (see Table 1).