At the opening reception of Ecommerce Europe’s new office location the Director-General of DG CONNECT, Robert Madelin, expressed his desire for a more digital approach from the European Commission. He stressed that the European Commission and Ecommerce Europe should become allies in unlocking the enormous potential of a truly Digital Single Market.
Madelin mentioned: “It is clear that the e-commerce market is a major opportunity for years to come. The next President of the European Commission must be a digital President. Digital needs to be his or her priority and that of every other member of the College.”
At the reception François Momboisse, the President of Ecommerce Europe, offered European policy makers a one-stop-shop for access to knowledge and information about the e-commerce market. On the other hand Ecommerce Europe requests a one-stop-shop on e-commerce policies from the EU institutions and asks policy makers to join forces in facilitating integration of the current plethora of e-commerce policy.
Digital policy
In response to the request of Ecommerce Europe to provide a European one-stop-shop for e-commerce policies, Madelin confirmed that the European Commission has been too fragmented in its approach to digital policy. The right-hand of Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that the current European Commission has not sufficiently prioritized the digital portfolio and that the Digital Single Market is far from completed.
Robert Madelin and Neelie Kroes have been working hard in the past years to promote the Digital Agenda in Europe, and so far there has been some progress. However, in order to give digital policy the attention that it deserves, it is important that digitalization is recognized as an important aspect of all policies – not just the ones directly linked to the Internet. In this light Robert Madelin underlined that he would like digitalization to be a priority of the next President of the European Commission, in order to facilitate an integrated approach to policy in this digital age.
