I’ve always been interested in space. Mysteries of the universe, space travel, black holes and all that. So it was a real pleasure to hear an 83-year-old Buzz Aldrin speak at a dinner in Brussels recently, and to discover that my dinner table neighbour worked for NASA. It got me comparing the challenges of getting [...]

Good audit committees need to be able to deal with all types of risks – many associated with matters about which committee members have no personal prior knowledge. Cyber security is a classic example.  Digital technologies are fast moving and ever more pervasive. Security matters are by their very nature often shrouded in secrecy. So [...]

Europe has been fertile ground for creative minds for centuries. Over the past two decades, the digital economy has taken this to a new level. The European Commission’s orientation debate on copyright, the lifeblood of creativity, therefore comes at just the right time. Those with the highest stakes in copyright have made their voice heard, [...]

When a technology proves disruptive and ubiquitous enough to power networks that attract 2.2 billion users – one third of the world’s population – daily, is it reasonable to pretend that nothing is happening and to support status quo? A variety of regulatory props have been designed to nurture creativity over the last five centuries. [...]

Est-il raisonnable de se voiler la face et de se retrancher derrière un dérisoire statu quo au moment où une technologie s’avère révolutionnaire et omniprésente au point d’attirer chaque jour 2,2 milliards de fidèles – un tiers de l’humanité – sur les réseaux dont elle est le moteur? Dans la panoplie réglementaire héritée de l’ère analogique, [...]

Last week, European Commission Vice-President and Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Antonio Tajani, stated that more than 95% of the new models of data-enabled mobile phones placed on the EU market by Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signatories during the first half of 2012 offer the common charging capability. For consumers this means that the latest [...]

DIGITALEUROPE’s vision is of a Europe that nurtures and supports digital technology industries, and prospers from the jobs we provide, the innovation and economic benefits we deliver and the societal challenges we address.  So we are pleased to read, in the renewed EU Industrial Policy published on 10 October, with the telling subtitle “A Stronger [...]

John Steinbeck reportedly borrowed this title from a verse authored by Robert Burns: « The best laid schemes o’mice an’ men often go awry ». Arguably, times of crisis hold out as many opportunities as risks: in order to be fleet-footed enough to catch the former and ensure that they prevail over the latter, we need to [...]

Cyber security has become an imperative. Governments around the world are preoccupied by the possibility of targeted cyber-attacks and they rightly take initiatives to protect their citizens. To illustrate: security was selected as one of the priority topics for the European Commission’s Digital Agenda Assembly 2012 last week in Brussels, and many other events have [...]

Media seem to go by the unwritten dogma that only difference in opinion, not consensus, is worth the headlines. Regardless, agreeing common principles has always been a prerequisite to joint action or effective progress in the real world. This at least holds true for the European Union, this innovative construct of national governments whose collective [...]