Editor's note

Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip, in charge of the Digital Single Market, has revealed at a recent European Parliament plenary session in Strasburg the DSM’s main features.

The vast majority of the EU member states have already recognised the DSM’s importance and benefits, which the DSM would bring for people and business, for creating economic growth and employment.

A clear timetable

The DSM strategy has a clear timetable, with sixteen ambitious initiatives based around three inter-linked policy pillars:

- better access for consumers and businesses to digital goods and services across Europe;

- high-quality infrastructure that works smoothly across Europe, while creating the right and fair conditions in the underlying environment; and

- preparing for the future, to maximise the growth potential of the digital economy.

These initiatives would form a realistic roadmap for the EU states and the Baltics to work together over the next four and a half years. They will prepare Europe for a brighter digital future.

DSM three policy pillars

For the first pillar, the idea is to secure and guarantee free movement of goods and services in a unified digital space, and to improve online access generally. The DSM aims to boost cross-border e-commerce by encouraging SMEs to sell across borders.

The DSM first initiatives will bring rules for online purchases more into line across the EU: people could save €11.7 billion per year if they choose a full range of EU goods and services shopping online.

The DSM is also about modernising today's copyright system; the Commission wants to improve people's access to cultural content online, while opening new opportunities for creators and the content industry.

The first pillar is also to promote cultural diversity; the Commission will present legislative proposals before the end of 2015 to reduce the differences between national copyright regimes and allow for wider online access to works across the EU.

Under its second pillar, the strategy intends to improve conditions for digital networks and services to underpin the DSM. The Commission will propose an ambitious reform of EU telecoms rules, which would include more effective spectrum coordination.

It will also tackle regulatory differences around EU national markets and create better incentives for investment in high-speed broadband.

The Commission will also conduct a comprehensive analysis of the role of online platforms. It will focus on transparency, liability and equal conditions for competition.

In the third pillar, the Commission intends to build a solid foundation for long-term growth.

European states need to take full advantage of the digital economy, where data is becoming all-important and where people have the skills needed to fill new jobs.

They must also have trust and confidence when they go online: common standards and interoperability are essential to make the best of fast-growing sectors such as cloud computing.  

The states also need DSM in the context of promoting e-government services and a more inclusive e-society.

These incentives, the Commission vice-president argued, must be taken together, as a coordinated and balanced package. “This is going to be long and difficult”, he added. “None of what we plan will be easy– modernising copyright laws, reviewing telecoms rules, tackling geo-blocking, or assessing the role of platforms”.

The Baltic’s efforts

However, the DSM’s strategy guidelines for the Baltics have been already either in working conditions or announced. Thus, for Estonia, it has been for the last several years an overwhelming activity in e-governance: for Latvia – digital personalised medical service (to be completed in 2016), and for Lithuania – a sort of “digital for all”.

Reference: Speech by Vice-President Ansip, in charge of the Digital Single Market, at the European Parliament plenary in Strasburg. In:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-4999_en.htm?locale=en