Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM

Toward the European Information Society

By Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
Communications of the ACM, January 2001, Vol. 44 No. 1, Pages 31-35
10.1145/357489.357501
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The European Information Society project was set in motion in the early 1990s. It was a move by the European Union (EU) that was inspired by two factors: First, the U.S. National Information Infrastructure Initiative (NIII), introduced in the early 1990s, had a direct impact on many countries and international organizations. The

EU was no exception. The guiding principles of the NIII provided a model for subsequent European initiatives expressed in such documents as the Bangemann Report [7] and eEurope [5]. Another factor was the assumed potential of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). Advances in technology were expected to provide a key for economic growth and advantages in global competition. By 1993 the EU was ready to construct a new agenda and meet the challenge of the emerging information age. It was not alone in this crusade, as we all know. This was a time in which a new spirit of global competition and knowledge-based economy was gaining ground worldwide.

This article addresses how European Information Society policy was designed and what measures have been taken by the EU since the early 1990s. Special attention is paid to what has happened to the idea of democracy in this policymaking process. The main argument is that while focusing on economic growth and competitiveness, problems of democracy in general, let alone the potential of electronic democracy, have not become an issue in the EU agenda at all. Europe may be gradually falling behind in reinventing democratic government for the information age.

The idea of a European Information Society was introduced in a meeting of the European Council in Copenhagen in the summer of 1993. By the end of that year the Commission published a White Paper on future growth, competitiveness, and employment challenges [2]. This White Paper emphasized the significance of the evolution toward the Information Society for the future of Europe. The basic idea was to start promoting a European-wide infrastructure to help revive economic growth and competitiveness and to create new markets and jobs. Excited by this new vision, the Brussels European Council asked for a high-level group of experts to present a report of the society suggesting concrete measures for its implementation. The result was one of the EU's most influential policy documents of the 1990s, usually referred to as the Bangemann Report [7]. As a result the Information Society became an officially recognized element of the overall strategy and a vision for the future of the EU. Indeed, the Information Society became the very core of the strategic goal and development policy of the Union and has remained ever since.

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In spite of the official rhetoric on the democratic heritage of Europe and the actual democracy deficit of the Union, democracy is not really an issue at the community level. It is as if all the democratic rights were secured for European citizens at the national level and nothing more is needed.

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The report reflected the interests of industrial leaders as key figures of European industries who had a significant role in determining its content. The report also emphasized the urgency of community action to ensure that European enterprises maintain their global competitiveness. It highlighted the need to speed up the process of liberalization while, at the same time, consolidating universal service and creating a coherent statutory framework. It proposed a list of 10 initiatives aimed at demonstrating the feasibility and usefulness of new telematic applications, including teleworking, distance learning, and electronic services for SMEs.

After the Bangemann Report was published, there was a need to define more concrete actions. The Commission presented "Europe's Way to the Information Society: An Action Plan" [3] aimed at constituting a general framework within which action in different fields relating to the Information Society was to be structured. To be more precise, it was about regulation, networks, services, and social aspects. An updated and revised Action Plan was announced in 1996 in order to launch a second phase of the policy that presented four main policy lines: improving the business environment; enhancing Europe's knowledge base by investing in research, education, and learning; working for more integrated policy with a view to social and security issues; and meeting the global challenge by promoting the Information Society on a global scale. A subsequent Rolling Action Plan addresses community actions complementary to those undertaken by the member states.

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eEurope Fine-tunes the Agenda

European Information Society policy was stimulated by increased global competition. In this respect the situation intensified during the 1990s. By the end of the decade, the Commission launched a new initiative entitled "eEurope: An Information Society for All," which echoes the endeavor to modernize the European economy as expressed in [7]. The eEurope initiative focuses on 10 priority actions covering such areas as cheaper Internet access, e-commerce, electronic services (especially schools and health care), intelligent transportation, and government online. [5]

In early 2000 the European Council set its long-term strategic goals in two important summits: The EU's strategic goal for the new decade was "to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion." Promoting Information Society development is clearly in the core of these policy lines.

The Commission launched the eEurope Action Plan in June 2000. The plan lays down a strategy to address key barriers to the uptake of the Internet in Europe [6]. There is a visible change in attitude toward the Internet comparing to, say, the reservations of [7]. The eEurope Action Plan proposes that member states and the Commission commit to achieving three objectives: A cheaper, faster, more secure Internet; investing in people's skills and access; and stimulating the use of the Internet. All these key elements should be in place by 2002. The idea is to close the Internet gap between Europe and North America, as only about 22% of European households have Internet access, compared to the U.S. where about half the nation's households are online.

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Remarks on European Policy

In order to understand the background of European Information Society, there is need to point out that the EU information technology policies in the 1980s and early 1990s were written by industrial leaders. This practice influenced subsequent policy too, as [7] reveals.

Moreover, in the early phase of policy development the EU paid special attention to regulatory aspects (regulation, security, intellectual property rights), technological innovations, and infrastructures. The main motive was economic growth, competitiveness, and employment as expressed in [3]. "A social challenge" was mentioned even in [7], but a wider social dimension came into the picture a bit later. For example, fear of a digital divide was a major topic in Europe and it obviously could not be ignored in the EU's policy and action lines. Overall, it may be appropriate to say that with regard to Information Society policy the EU subordinated the social dimension to techno-economic rationality. Where this dimension is truly relevant is the EU policy on economic and social cohesion.

Traditional European values and a need to strengthen economic and social cohesion are key objectives emphasized in many EU policy documents. Indeed, the EU seems to adapt an asymmetrical policy mix in which market-oriented measures were given highest priority, and in which aspects of social cohesion and equality were incorporated to ensure critical mass for the e-economy and e-government. This dual society policy has been typical of Europe from the very beginning. Usually this duality is expressed in subsequent policy documents by emphasizing that both business and individuals must have easy and inexpensive access to communication infrastructure and a wide range of services. Therefore, European citizens are usually referred to as workers who should learn new skills and become more efficient and effective in their work, or consumers or service users fulfilling their duties in consuming multimedia products and using electronic services effectively, thus creating critical mass for market-driven policy development.

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National and Local Projects

Actual advancements in developing democracy—and e-democracy in particular—are based on efforts of national, regional, and local governments and also nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civic movements operating at different levels. The U.K. is a good example of this movement, and it has influenced all of Europe by its Modernising Government Agenda [8].

In 1998, the British Government set up the People's Panel where 5,000 citizens were randomly selected for regular polling and focus groups. The panel is designed as a representative cross-section of the population of the U.K. Panel members are consulted about how public services are delivered and how that delivery can be improved from a user-centered point of view. Citizen panels and citizen juries had been in use for years in local government, but this was the first of its kind operating at national level.

In addition to national reforms, there are a number of local and regional governments that have taken steps in developing local democracy. Because of the local authorities' widespread responsibilities in service provision, a considerable part of the development activities are directed to improve service delivery systems. Yet, there are many European local authorities that have increased transparency and facilitated participatory processes, thus contributing to the overall development in Europe.

A good example of NGOs is the U.K.-based Institute for Public Policy Research, a center-left think tank that contracts with governmental agencies to establish citizen juries to address some selected issues of public concern. In fact, IPPR is experimenting in this field with a wide variety of citizen empowerment tools. It runs the Public Involvement Programme (PIP), which is a collaborative project furthering the development of new ways of involving the public in decision-making. The PIP will aid the practical development of new models including citizens' juries, deliberative polls, consensus conferences, citizens' panels, and electronic meetings [1].

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Europe may be gradually falling behind in reinventing democratic government for the information age.

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An example of civic movements comes from continental Europe. A dynamic movement known as Mehr Demokratie ("More Democracy") is involved in actions aimed at lowering the institutional barriers to participating in democratic processes and, moreover, instituting the right of indirect initiative at the national level. The movement has grown into a recognized national organization. It has conducted successful campaigns in Bavaria and later in Hamburg, Germany concerning the right of citizen initiatives at the local level. Yet, the fate of more ambitious goals remains to be seen [1]. There are also new European democracy movements and organizations in the making, such as Network Direct Democracy Initiatives in Europe (NDDIE).

All these examples provide some new prospects for transformational politics in which representative systems are supplemented by various forms of direct and participatory democracy. A gradual move in this direction may occur all over the world, as suggested by Becker and Slaton [1]. The EU, however, does not seem to be a proponent of it. It takes a much more conventional and conservative stance.

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Is Democracy a Missing Element?

It is surprising how many times such words as "citizens' involvement," "participation," "dialogue," "transparency" and even "democracy" appear in EU policy documents without a clear reference to concrete actions concerning them.

Government online is one of the priority areas of the eEurope initiative that covers some issues related to democracy. It states that better access to public information would make the Internet more relevant to daily lives and thereby encourage wider participation in the Information Society. Very a little is said about how this actually improves a cherished democratic government. To put it bluntly, the EU refers to "access" as critical mass, "participation" to consumption processes, "dialogue" to opportunity to make inquiries via Internet, and "transparency" to official documents available in e-format on the Internet. This suggests how eEurope and the entire Union deal with democracy. The techno-economic message is usually surprisingly explicit, though sometimes it is bundled with expressions suggestive of genuine democracy and participation.

When considering the entire European Information Society policy, democracy does not seem to be a real issue at all. Rather, democracy has been on the agenda in the most serious way when the EU is dealing with the enlargement of the Union or some issues of foreign policy. On the other hand, the widely recognized lack of transparency and democracy in the EU has recently stimulated discussion within the Union to increase the dialogue between citizens and EU administrations. The Commission has indeed encouraged public debate on institutional reform of the Union. But "for reasons of pragmatism" this process focuses on opinion multipliers such as parties, members of the European Parliament, and elected representatives of regional and local authorities.

As for the revival of the democratic system, most of the innovations have been made by member states and regional and local actors. Some programs, like IST of the Fifth Framework Programme for 1998–2002, are used selectively to support experiments relating to democratic practices. Similarly, there are some funded projects by the Information Society Promotion Office (ISPO) on democracy and related thematic areas. They include The Information Society in the Local Areas; Forum (a workshop about public debates on the Internet); Campaign for Open Politics in Europe (a virtual political café); Network for Union Democracy (NetUnion); Developing Digital Democracy (D3); and Public Communication and Social Participation via Interactive Digital Broadcasting. Projects like these contain innovative elements, but because of the nature of their specific contexts and their focus on media or technological mediation, and therefore their loose connection to the institutional axis and mechanisms of democratic system, their contributions are likely to remain modest.

The bottom line is that in spite of the official rhetoric on the democratic heritage of Europe and the actual democracy deficit of the Union, democracy is not really an issue at the community level. It is as if all the democratic rights were secured for European citizens at the national level and nothing more is needed. Democracy is on the margin of the agenda, and consequently only partial project-based measures are directed to support some selected aspects of it.

Sure, there is a need to point out that decisions on democratic governance are vested to the national and local governments of the member states, but the EU could certainly do much more in this field by simply addressing democracy on a high political-level agenda. The EU can also set up or support experiments in which democratic mechanisms, institutional arrangements, and decision-making structures—not just technological mediation tools—are at stake.

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The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2001 ACM, Inc.

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