Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-16-Speech-4-041"
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"en.20000316.2.4-041"2
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"Mr President, colleagues, not since the spread of universal suffrage in the last century has our society faced such a big potential transfer of power. The information society has potential to transfer power from government to individual, from bureaucrat to citizen and, of course, from business to consumer. It opens up a global market place and almost limitless information to anyone with access to a computer screen. It is the biggest engine to break down barriers between communities and nationalities that we have ever seen – bigger than any EU directive can possibly be. It offers more power, more choice, lower prices to citizens across Europe and indeed across the world, and in my view the best thing that governments can do in cyberspace is to stay out of it as much as they possibly can and let consumers, businesses and citizens get on with their businesses and their lives.
Legislators cannot keep up with this technology even if they try to. Technology and industry are better equipped to respond to consumer concerns in what is an immensely competitive market. It is that competitive market which will ensure that consumers are protected, not heavy-handed legislation which might stunt e-commerce and leave others around the world to reap the benefits of a revolution in our economy which is unparalleled since the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. But we all know that we need a base line of government involvement. We need a basic legislative framework for e-commerce. I hope it will be a light-touch framework, but we need to drive it through quickly because the e-clock is ticking and there are many organisations around the world fighting for this business. It is in our interest to make sure that we get the answers and our legislation right, but also to get them through quickly.
We in this House should drive through the e-commerce directive with its country of origin principle as fast as we possibly can. We should adopt new rules on jurisdiction which trust consumers to make an informed choice about which jurisdiction they want to opt for. We should drive through the liberalisation of the telecoms package, because it is only with a low-cost competitive telecoms market that we can deliver this power, these low prices and these big opportunities to our consumers, because that is the only way to get low prices for our consumers. We want to build on Europe's lead on mobile telephony and adopt the examples of such great global players as Finland's Nokia. Member States should build on the IT skills concepts in their schools, but we must do this quickly because if we do not, others will take the prize on offer here, which is dominance in the global e-commerce market."@en1
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