"eEurope – An Information Society for all’ was launched by the European Commission on 8 December 1999.

The eEurope initiative is a key element in the strategy of modernizing the European economy.
See http://europa.eu.int/comm/information_society/eeurope/index_en.htm.

In the same context, the eEurope Smart Cards initiative aims to provide each citizen with personal intelligent keys to trust and confidence. See http://eeurope-smartcards.org.

ETSI, together with CEN and CENELEC as the recognized European Standards Organizations (ESOs) have been invited to contribute to the eEurope initiative with their competence in standardization. The European Commission and the ESOs have agreed to provide the necessary standards and other activities to meet the objectives of the initiative in the requested time frame as detailed in the eEurope web site. See http://www.e-europestandards.org.

eEurope 2002: The original eEurope Action Plan was supposed to be completed by the end of 2002. According to the action lines, the European Standards Organizations (ESOs) responded with a common rolling Action Plan. It was established in July 2001. A revised version of this common rolling Action Plan, with the contribution of the ESOs has been issued in July 2002.

ETSI contributes to the eEurope initiative for an Information Society for All with a number of standards and other deliverables.

The detailed ETSI  work programme indicates its relevance for each eEurope objective and action line.

eEurope 2005: Under the EU Spanish presidency an informal meeting of Ministers for Telecommunications and the Information Society took place to lay down the main lines for an eEurope 2005 action plan . As a further step, COM(2002)263 final  was elaborated to be presented in view of the Sevilla European Council, 21/22 June 2002. In order to monitor progress of the Action Plan, the Commission made proposals for a benchmarking exercise based on a set of indicators as indicated in COM(2002)655 final.

The eEurope 2005 Action Plan succeeds the former Action Plan.

See the Council Resolution of 18 February 2003 on the implementation of the eEurope 2005 Action Plan.

Measure have also been defined and a Decision has been issued for the monitoring of the eEurope 2005 action plan .

The new Action Plan moved essentially from infrastructure to the users with services and applications and new targets for implementation. For ETSI, the support will focus on:

• Broadband Networks including UMTS and IPv6;
• eBusiness with mobile commerce and smart cards;
• Human Factors with eAccessibility at the Man-Machine Interface and Design for All and Assistive Technologies aspects;
• Security to increase trust and confidence in services.

The items above will cover both standardization activities and standardization/implementation promotional activities such as PLUGTESTS Services and seminars.

i2010 - European Information Society for growth and employment: To continue after completion of eEurope 2005 Action Plan at end of 2005, there was a need for a new initiative called i2010 - A European Information Society for growth and employment - which is driven by the revision of the Lisbon Strategy and new challenges ahead. In fact Information Society is moving from a “pilot phase” to a “wide deployment” as the ICT world becomes more mature and global. In this context the European Commission published in June 2005 a Communication on the challenges to be addressed by a European Information Society strategy up to 2010.

The i2010 First Annual Report on the European Information Society is available through EC communication COM/2006/215 final .

More information can be found on the Commission related web pages.