Granada Ministerial Declaration on the European Digital Agenda

Yesterday, we returned to the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union, in the blog post Spain and ICT industry towards Digital Agenda for Europe (2010). The blog post recounted the key themes of the European level trade associations for the information and communication technology businesses:

Industry Partnership Contribution to the Spanish Presidency Digital Europe Strategy - Recommendations of the European Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Industry to the Spanish Presidency of the European Union


Granada Declaration

The Spanish presidency lent its prestige to the new digital strategy being prepared, by arranging an informal meeting of EU ministers in Granada. The visible outcome of the ministerial meeting was the Granada Declaration:

Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union: Granada Ministerial Declaration on the European Digital Agenda (19 April 2010)

At this point, the communication from the Commission about the Europe 2020 strategy, 3.3.2010 COM(2010) 2020, had already been published.

After recalling the importance and potential of information and communications technologies, the four-page Granada Declaration set a number of guidelines in 29 paragraphs under the following headings:

Infrastructures
Advanced use of the open internet, security and trust
Digital User Rights
Digital Single Market
Public Digital Services
Strengthening the Competitiveness of Europe's ICT sector
International dimension of the Digital Agenda
Measuring progress

The Spanish government (La Moncloa) hailed the informal meeting of EU telecommunications and information society ministers, held from 18 to 20 April 2010 in the Andalusian city of Granada, as the most important event for the Spanish presidency in terms of the information society.

The European Commission issued a memo: Digital Agenda: Kroes welcomes Ministerial support (19 April 2010 MEMO/10/137).

Kroes rated the Granada Declaration as "a milestone, a crucial building block for a truly European Digital Agenda".

She promised that the Ministerial Declaration will be taken into account by the Commission in its forthcoming Communication on a European Digital Agenda, one of the pillars of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (see IP/10/225 about EU2020 communication).

Microsoft Europe, through John Vassallo, issued a statement on the Granada declaration (4 May 2010), where the company encouraged the Commission to seek consistent interoperability practices across industry.



Ralf Grahn

P.S. The Next Web TNW reports that Nokia’s “Sea Ray” Windows Phone prototype emerges in a video. Light at the end of the tunnel for Nokia and Microsoft cooperation in the mobile world?