Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-01-Speech-4-068"
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"en.20010201.5.4-068"2
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"Madam President, may I congratulate Mrs ΟαToole on her report, which throws into relief the dramatic changes which have taken place in the world of books over recent years as the result of new technologies. All of us who love books, both as readers and writers, must rethink our relationship with books from square one. A revolution has taken place which makes books even more interesting, even richer, even more indispensable to each and every one of us. At the same time, however, it means that there is vital need for us to develop European and national policies to address the problems caused by new methods of production and distribution. To the question of whether books should be protected from uncontrolled market forces we say yes, given the huge cultural importance of books and reading in our society, which we must strengthen as much as we can.
The new prospects for spreading information and enlarging the reading public via the Internet are accompanied by the problems of intellectual property and the status of authors and the risk of large swathes of the population being left with no access to the new media. A lack of equal opportunities for the computer illiterate, rural areas and minority groups may prove to be fatal, especially where it compounds the considerable degree of illiteracy which already exists. The problem is so serious that there is even talk of yet another threat to social cohesion, a threat which needs to be dealt with promptly through decisive policies on the part of the European Union. But all the Member States should facilitate access for the young to books and encourage them to read during their education, because it is they who represent the future of the European Union and there can be no future without books, be they in hard or soft copy."@en1
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