31 May - 6 June 2001

Malta to take part in E-Europe+ initiative

Malta will be taking part in the E-Europe+ initiative together with the other candidate countries for EU membership. The initiative is a co-operative effort to implement and promote the information society in Europe.
The action plan was prepared by candidate countries with the support of the European Commission and will now be open to discussion with all interested stakeholders in Malta.
Minister for Justice and Local Councils Austin Gatt told The Malta Business Weekly that the aim behind the consultations will be to ensure that key stakeholders pull the rope in the same direction.
The E-Europe+ initiative aims to give benchmarks which will be the targets to be reached by the candidate countries.
This initiative follows the e-Europe initiative for member states. The most advanced countries among the candidate countries are Malta, Cyprus, Estonia and Lithuania but there are others which lag behind.
Dr Gatt said the initiative takes on realistic benchmarks which can be reached by all candidate countries.
The government will now hold intensive discussions with stakeholders such as ISPs, GRTU, the Federation of Industry, the Chamber of Commerce, the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, the Association of Local Councils, the Unions including GWU, UHM, MUT as well as the KSU and the National Commission for people with disability.
The consultation process will take the form of a series of bilateral meetings over the next weeks to identify the roles and the programmes/initiatives that are being implemented or planned to be introduced by the organisations.
“It is not our aim to take control of the sector but we want everyone to work towards the same goal, that is to have an information society in Malta where no one is left behind,” Dr Gatt said.
Malta was invited to take part in the eEurope+ initiative last February together with Cyprus and Turkey and helped in defining the common Action Plan with the candidate countries from Central and Eastern Europe.
The aim is to accelerate reform and modernisation of the economies in the candidate countries, encourage capacity and institution building and improve overall competitiveness.
The action plan also aims to accelerate the putting in place of the basic building blocks of an Information society, ensuring cheaper, faster and secure internet and investing in people and skills.
It also aims to stimulate the use of internet like accelerating e-commerce, government online, health online, environment on line among others.