§ Mr. HoodTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the outcome was of the Transport and Telecommunications Council held in Brussels on 25–26 March; what the Government's stance was on issues discussed, including its voting record; and if she will make a statement. [46923]
§ Mr. AlexanderThe Deputy UK Permanent Representative to the European Union, Bill Stow, attended the Council on 25 March on my behalf.
There was a Presidency briefing, followed by an exchange of views, on the follow-up to the Barcelona European Council conclusions on the eEurope 2005 Action Plan. There was broad agreement on the importance of third generation mobile and digital television alongside computer-based internet access to deliver broadband services. A UK-led call to focus as much on content as infrastructure, creating demand for broadband services as well as the supply of networks, received the support of six member states. The Commission announced that they aim to have the eEurope 2005 Action Plan ready for the 17 June Telecommunications Council.
The council adopted general orientations on amendments to the existing decisions on electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA), and the trans-European telecommunications networks (TEN) decision. The Presidency is now expected to pursue informal contacts with the European Parliament to try and secure first reading deals on both dossiers.
The council adopted a resolution on web accessibility, to encourage member states to implement the Web Accessibility Initiative's (WAI) guidelines in respect of public sector websites, aimed at making it easier for the EU's 37 Million elderly and disabled citizens to access the internet. Social and geographic digital exclusion are likely to feature prominently under the Greek Presidency in the first half of 2003.
The commission gave a presentation on international governance of the internet, following which member states exchanged views on reform issues under consideration by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)—the private US corporation established to manage the internet domain name system. The council gave a mandate to COREPER to develop a common EU position to be fed into the EU-US Information Society Dialogue and the ongoing discussions of the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) to ICANN.
Final adoption of the regulation to establish the .eu internet top level domain was among the A points adopted by the council.