In yesterday's communication ''Better access for rural areas to modern ICT'', the European Commission (EC) supports the need to improve fast Internet access in rural areas, revealing that it is available to work with Member States to enable achievement of the ''broadband for all'' objective by 2010. The communication is issued in response to the request of the Council (Agriculture and Fisheries) for the Commission to study the issue of better access to ICT in rural areas, with particular reference to high-speed internet. It also stimulates political debate on how rural development contributes to the ''Lisbon Strategy'', as well as on European ICT policy.
As a consequence of the European communication ''good internet access can make farms and companies in rural areas, especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), less isolated and more competitive through access to international markets and faster and more efficient ways of doing business'', while ''high quality Internet availability can help unlock the potential of rural areas and may make them more attractive places to live''.
The EC aims to connect ''30% of the EU's rural population that has no high speed internet access'' drawing on community support programs and calling directly on Member States to do the same.
Further information:
- Rural Development policy 2007-2013 - Better access for rural areas to modern Information and Communication Technologies http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rurdev/employment/ict/index_en.htm
- Better high-speed internet access needed to revitalise Europe's rural regions, says Commission http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/343&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament - Better access for rural areas to modern ICT http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0103:FIN:EN:HTML
