Public Policy Blog

As you all know, the review of the ITRs is a key issue in the ICT policy agenda for 2012 and highly debated in the international arena. Therefore, the association of the European Telecommunication Network Operators (ETNO), in co-operation with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), have announced a workshop entitled ‘Revising the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) – Preparations for WCIT 2012’ that will gather a range of high level speakers from across the globe, including speakers from the ITU, ISOC, the Council of Europe, the European Commission, USA and Telefónica, between others.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, around one billion people – 15% of the world’s population – have some type of disability worldwide. According to the European Commission, “about 80 million people living in the EU have a mild to severe disability. The physical obstacles they face, such as gaining [...]

On 11 January 2012, European Commission adopted the 2012 Communication on e-commerce and other online services that aim to double the retails online sales and the weight of Internet sector in European GDP. The Communication identifies 5 priorities and is accompanied by a 16 goals action plan. As I already wrote in my post on Cloud [...]

The European Union has designated 2012 as the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations (EY2012). EY2012 will be officially launched at a high-level EU conference which will take place next week (18-19 January 2012) in Copenhagen (Denmark). At the event, the Stakeholders’ Coalition for the European Year 2012 will present its roadmap, [...]

Last week, the Danish government presented the programme of the Danish EU Presidency ‘Europe at work’ for the next six months. The programme includes the four fundamental priorities for the Danish Presidency – a responsible Europe, a dynamic Europe, a green Europe and a safe Europe – and the Council configurations.  The Transport, Telecommunications and [...]

Telefónica has been chosen by the OECD to represent the business sector at a workshop on December 7 on “Financing R&D&Innovation in the Current Macroeconomic Context” held at the OECD headquarters. Here are some ideas…

The use of ICT solutions applied to different essential areas in urban environments such as transport, energy, building constructions, etc…is key to assure a determined sustainability and an adequate quality of life when living in big cities.

This is the idea existing behind the term “smart cities” and many initiatives are currently ongoing worldwide to transform cities into intelligent and more efficient metropolitan areas for the benefit of their citizens.

Thierry Dieu, acting Director of ETNO and media spokesperson of this association, has a broad experience as communication expert within the European Commission, both in Brussels and previosly in its delegation in Moscow, and as Communication Manager of the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU (CIAA). He has been succesfully leading all ETNO media campaigns during the last years, achieving two nominations for the European Public Affairs best campaign award in 2008 and 2010. We from Telefónica (TEF) recently met with him, to learn more about ETNO and his views on ICT and the hot issues which are handled at this key association representing “Europe’s leading e-communications services and networks providers”.

Last week we attended the first Digital Agenda Assembly, where a whole range of topics were discussed, and as part of our contribution to the debate, I wanted to look at the issue of a Digital Single Market for Europe. There is clearly great potential in a Single Market for digital content for Europe – [...]

This week the EC is organizing the 11th edition of the Green Week, the biggest annual conference on European environment policy. This year’s theme is “Resource Efficiency – Using less, living better”. But what does that mean? Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for Environment, explained in his opening speech that resource efficiency “is not just about [...]