Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-01-Speech-4-071"
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Madam President, this highly stimulating report by Mrs O’Toole gives us the opportunity to think more deeply about the future of book-publishing and to develop new initiatives. As the report quite rightly emphasises, books play, and will continue to play, a vital role in extending the influence of our diverse European cultures, and indeed the remarkable growth in the number of published titles testifies to the wealth, the vitality and the diversity of these cultures. So it is only natural that we should have opted for an initiative designed to promote culture, an initiative which takes increasing account of the role of books as indispensable carriers of our cultural heritage. This, incidentally, is a feature of the cohesion policy we are pursuing through the Structural Funds. Are you aware of that, ladies and gentlemen? Let me give you some examples. Thanks to Community support, the number of libraries in Greece will double between now and the year 2006, rising from 526 to 1170. Over the same period, EUR 38 million will be devoted to the development of archives, libraries and reading under the operational programme on culture in Portugal, more than half of which will be financed from the European Regional Development Fund. The same thing has been happening in the domain of competition policy, where great emphasis is being placed on the value of books to the people of Europe. This is reflected in our cultural initiatives too. When we discussed the Culture 2000 programme, Parliament emphasised the major role that should be assigned to activities for the promotion of books and literature. The first year of implementation of the programme shows that this wish has been fulfilled. Mrs O’Toole’s report invites us to broaden our horizons and to consider all aspects of the technological revolution with a view to preserving the range of European publications in all its diversity, seizing new opportunities, dealing with any risks, guaranteeing access to knowledge and, last but not least, guaranteeing the rights of creative artists. The digital revolution constitutes both an opportunity and a risk. But that is very well expressed by Mrs O’Toole in her report, so I need not dwell on that point. Allow me to make just one remark, which relates to the risk of exclusion that could emerge if we do not pay special attention to the needs of disadvantaged people. Digital technology can do nothing for culture and education unless it is accessible. Madam President, I refuse to accept that there must inevitably be a technology gap between generations, between social strata, between those who are ‘switched on’ and those who are not, between those whose life and work will derive maximum benefit from digital technology and those for whom such technology will remain an object of fear and a threat to their place in society. I believe we must do everything possible to close this digital divide rather than merely declaring (a) that it exists and (b) that we cannot do anything about it. On the contrary, we certainly can do something about it. That is the civic duty and the social responsibility of everyone of us here, in Parliament or in the Commission. Besides, Madam President, I believe that globalisation, if it is harnessed, and digital technology need not automatically destroy national and regional cultures. It is certain that the cultural industries will be radically and rapidly transformed to incorporate the new reality of the information society. So we must guide these momentous changes rather than merely watching them unfold and allowing ourselves to be left behind. We must be in at the start of their development to ensure that digital technology is able to offer new access routes to published material as well as a rich diversity of such material.
One of our first initiatives, financially modest but exploratory in nature, is the establishment of a cooperative network of publishing houses. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the area in which the Commission has its most important role to play, and I was determined that the proposal for the implementation of the Culture 2000 programme in the year 2001 should provide for specific support for the realisation of several projects involving cooperation between authors and publishers. If the experiment bears fruit, we shall launch more initiatives for the promotion of the publishing trade in its role as a carrier of culture. I believe that this opens up a new path which has not yet been adequately explored and that we have a key role to play here as a source of inspiration and innovation. Besides the specific initiative of the culture programme, I can name a host of support activities through which we are helping to ensure that the book publishing and distribution trades achieve their own digital revolution; in this way, we are pursuing the very aims that our rapporteur has set out. The e-learning initiative, which I launched in May of last year, relates to the infrastructure of the education system, because any future action in that field depends on a sound educational infrastructure. The services of the Commission have prepared a detailed programme for the implementation of the e-learning initiative. The Commission is also funding pilot projects and will continue to do so, especially under Minerva, part of the Socrates programme, which is devoted specifically to the use of technology in education and which, along with the Leonardo programme for vocational education, is one of the cornerstones of our activity. In addition, the development of partnerships between the public and private sectors can also remedy shortfalls in the provision of training. The Commission’s e-Europe action plan, for its part, is designed to ensure that the information society also serves to further the aim of social integration. Access to the Internet, to multimedia resources, will be made available in many public centres, including centres in disadvantaged areas, by the end of 2001 and to all school pupils by the end of 2002. Another focal point of our efforts is the development of services which help to provide content in the fields of e-education and e-culture. The e-content programme has just been adopted for a four-year period with the aim of encouraging the creation and use of digital content. The market can also be stimulated now, thanks to our collaboration with the European Investment Bank and the creation of a venture-capital fund for multimedia businesses. The promotion of multimedia content is the aim of this collaboration between the Commission and the EIB, which has agreed to step in with funding for the cultural industries. We have opened up a new avenue here which bodes well for the future, for this future that digital technology holds out to us. This prospect, ladies and gentlemen, also merits greater commitment on our part and should be given a higher profile. I personally agree with the idea advanced by several of you – Mr Graça Moura, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte and Mrs O’Toole – who have advocated the organisation of a year of books and reading. For various reasons, it is not possible to devote a special year to books and reading, but I believe we should sit down together and think about a books and reading day or week or month, which could be staged some time after the start of 2002. We shall not look at any specific dates or format just now, but do let us discuss this together, so that we can select the best possible option for inclusion in the Culture 2000 programme. I am very receptive to the idea of discussing this with interested parties in the framework of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport with a view to finding the solutions that will best serve the interests of books, reading and cultural diversity. As Members of the European Parliament will appreciate, technology is no more than an instrument, but it could be a very valuable instrument in our bid to maximise the potential of our European cultural heritage. And so I thank Mrs O’Toole and the Committee on Culture for their work and the important contribution they have made to the pursuit of this goal."@en1
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