Europe and the information society: analysis of the impact of the "Bangemann Report" on European politics, economy and society in the 1990s

Abstract

As a complement to the Jackes Delors White Paper, the European Council, meeting in December 1993, requested that a group of experts prepare a report for the 1994 Corfu Meeting. The document to be prepared by the group of experts should contain the necessary and specific measures that should be considered in the European Community for the establishment of telecommunications infrastructures throughout the Continent to face the challenges of the information society.

The coordinator of the group of experts was Martin Bangemann, European Commissioner in charge, at that time, of all matters related to telecommunications policy in Europe. The final document, prepared by the group of experts, was entitled: "Europe and the Global Information Society. Recommendations to the European Council".

Based on this report, the Council drew up an operational program with all the necessary measures, in the field of telecommunication infrastructures, for the implantation of said infrastructures in Europe, as well as the legal (liberalization of markets and common standardization) and economic (investments and development projects) necessary for its implementation.

Bangemann Report ", as the report prepared by the group of experts is commonly known, highlights the urgency of adopting immediate measures regarding the creation of a favorable regulatory environment, as well as the promotion of the new potentialities of these new technologies for the creation of markets for technological products and services. From this monument, the public authorities would have to play a fundamental role in the development of the information society in Europe, not only investing in telecommunications infrastructures, but also urgently ending national monopolies and liberalizing terminal markets. and services for the entry of new competitors.

The Report emphasized that private initiative would be important for the future development of new information technologies, but before this development work, the legal environment should be prone to penetration, in the different national markets, from the private initiative in the hands of telecommunications operators and service providers. Thus, in the telecommunications sector, the actions of the public authorities and the private initiative had to work in unison and in parallel, to achieve a common objective: the development of an information society in Europe (1).