Draft resolution to close the debate on the oral question concerning the information society pursuant art. 40 of Rules of Procedures

tabled by Olivier Dupuis, Gianfranco Dell'Alba on behalf of ARE group

The European Parliament,

a. whereas the European Union shows a considerable delay in the use and development of the new informatics end telematic technologies, notably as far as Internet is concerned, which is used only by 20 millions europeans compared with 70 millions north-americans;

b. whereas the attempt of apply to Internet the same rules as for the mass communication instruments does not take into account its interactive nature and its characteristic of instrument of interpersonal communication, thus risking to further delay the development of this technology which is essential to the growth of the information society;

c. whereas it is necessary in Europe to make it a priority the development of an information society which favours the reinforcement of democracy and Rule of Law through a strengthened participation and control by the citizens;

d. whereas it is necessary that the private investments are put in a framework of objective and clear rules;

e. whereas the publicity of the activities and acts of the organs of the European Union, of the States and of the public local agencies is a component element of democracy;

f. whereas the regulations as far as the telematic sector is concerned must be limited to grant the possibility of identifying the user by creating an european register of the internet providers and to oblige these ones to have themselves a register of their clients and users;

g. whereas if the direct access to the information concerning the decisional process is not granted to every citizen by all the available means one could no longer speak of real democracy and of achievement of the Rule of Law;

h. whereas it is important to channel public resources and stimulate private investments on the sector of the new technologies, abandoning at the same time the policies of sterile subsidies to sectors now unproductive or simply granted, also in order to actually favour the creation of employment;

i. whereas the Member States of the EU are the most important funding source for the largest part of international organisations;

j. whereas the worldwide challenge on this front risks to see the EU excluded in comparison with the greater american and asian dynamism;

1. calls upon the EU and the Member States to work for the rationalisation and to the reinforcement of their budgets and of their initiatives, also through fiscal incentives or of any other form, in order to boost the development of a digital society at the service of the citizen and of the consumer;

2. asks notably that at least 10% of the Budget of the EU is devoted to this goal;

3. asks to prepare some propositions, also in the legislative field, before December 31, 1998, in order to:

a) make sure of the liberalization and, if necessary, the privatization of the services and of the public data bases;

b) to grant, since the next european elections of June 1999, the electronic vote in all Member States, asking them to enlarge this system to all kind of electoral consultation, including the referendums;

c) to give, at a European level, legal value to the digital signature and to stipulate the formalities of its use in the framework of the internal market;

d) to encourage the electronic mass alphabetization all over the EU;

e) to make sure that the all the acts of the organs of the EU are integrally available on audio-visual network and to xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx and to assure the telematic audio-visual broadcasting of the Sittings of the European Parliament and of the public sitting of the other institutions;

f) to grant to the schools and universities infrastructures a full access to the telematic instruments promoting special communitarian programmes aiming to this end;

g) to encourage through specific communitarian programmes the development of several network of public access to the telematic services thus granting the universality of the service;

h) to assure to those whose sensorial and/or motor capabilities are reduced a full access to the services through textual form;

4. asks to reinforce the control of the actual respect of the rules of competition of the internal market of telecommunications and, for so doing, to reinforce the competent services of the Commission;

5. call upon the EU, in order to favour a worldwide process of regulation and auto-regulation of the electronic commerce and of the other telematic services, to promote an international convention on Internet and to verify the opportunity to establish an european agency for the development of telematic and of digital technologies;

6. asks (to the Commission) to promulgate a directive in order to define the legal nature of Internet confirming its characteristic of impersonal instrument of communication, avoiding therefore the application of the norms concerning the mass communication instruments;

7. demands the creation of an european register of the 'internet providers' and the adoption of regulating measures obliging these ones to have a register of their users and clients in order to allow the magistracy, in case of infringement or offence, to identify the responsible;

8. calls upon the EU and the Member States to invite the UN, its agencies and the main international organisations to quickly provide to the citizens the audio-visual access to their activities and decisions via internet;

9. instructs its President of forward the present resolution to the Council, to the Commission, to the governments and parliaments of the Member States and of the Candidate States, to the Committee of Regions and to the General Secretary of UN.