More than Half of Europeans Use Internet Regularly, ICT Progress Report
Over 250 million Europeans are now regular Internet users, 80 per cent of them have broadband connections and 60 per cent of public services in the EU are fully available online. Two thirds of schools and half of doctors make use of fast Internet connections, thanks to strong broadband growth in Europe.
These are the findings of a report from the European Commission on the results achieved with i2010, the EU’s digital-led strategy for growth and jobs. The strategy, agreed in 2005, has led to a firm commitment to promoting ICT at EU and national levels. As of 2007, all Member States consider ICT development as one of the main achievements in their structural reform programs.
In parallel, the EU institutions have encouraged the building of a single market for online services and increased research funding. A single market for telecoms, promoting cross-border communication services, is, however, still in the making.
Europe’s ICT policy strategy has triggered new EU initiatives on regulation, research and public-private partnerships, and is starting to deliver, claims the EC. The EU has the world’s largest developed consumer market and 100 million broadband internet connections and is thus well placed to reap the economic benefits of ICT.
In 2007, the Internet attracted nearly 40 million new regular users in the EU. In the last five years, ICT has had a big impact on public services, especially by bringing education and health online: more than 96 per cent of European schools are now connected to the Internet; two thirds of them to broadband, up from almost zero in 2001.
In the health sector, 57 per cent of doctors now send or receive patients’ data (17 per cent in 2002) and 46 per cent of them receiving results from laboratories electronically (11 per cent in 2002). 77 per cent of EU businesses had a broadband connection in 2007 (62 per cent in 2005) and 77 per cent use the Internet for dealing with banks (70 per cent in 2005).
Although the EU’s ICT sector is highly research-intensive, with levels above the US in Sweden (18 per cent), Finland (17 per cent) and Denmark (11 per cent), it is below 1% in Slovakia, Latvia and Poland. To boost research performance, EU-funded Joint Technology Initiatives on nanoelectronics and embedded systems, e-Health and risky high-tech research will become operational in 2008.
Nearly 40 per cent of Europeans do not use the Internet at all. This ranges from 69 per cent (Romania), 65 per cent (Bulgaria) and 62 per cent (Greece), to 13 per cent (Denmark, The Netherlands). To encourage use of new online technologies, the Commission will publish a Guide to EU Users’ Digital Rights and Obligations later this year.
In Austria, the Czech Republic, Malta and Portugal 100 per cent of basic public services for businesses can be fully transacted online. However, other countries, like Bulgaria (15 per cent), Poland (25 per cent) and Latvia (30 per cent) clearly lag behind. In May, the Commission will launch large-scale projects to support pan-European public services like the cross-border operation of electronic identity or electronic signatures.
The report is available here.
You can read more on the report on the i2010 website.
Source: EC
