Press release Open Letter Neelie Kroes (PDF version)
LT-Innovate welcomes the Connecting Europe Facility and calls for the inclusion of a Multilingual Digital Service Infrastructure as a matter of priority.
Brussels, 24 October 2012 - In an Open Letter to Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes, Jochen Hummel, Chaiman of LT-Innovate and CEO of ESTeam welcomes the Conclusions of the European Council of 18-19 October 2012 recognising that “the future Connecting Europe Facility will constitute an important instrument to promote growth through investment in transport, energy and ICT links”.
However, Mr. Hummel emphasises that: "In our view, a major public investment in ICT networks is only justified if it goes hand in hand with a substantial effort to create and/or strengthen European platforms, in particular a language platform. In a multilingual continent, this would indeed appear as an absolute necessity both to safeguard the digital future of all European languages and to overcome the language barriers that are still one of the main factors accounting for the fragmentation of the Single Market."
In addition: "the European Language Cloud would considerably bring down the costs of cross-border products and services and allow all Europeans to seamlessly interact with the 1 billion+ market of speakers of European languages. This would constitute a major opportunity and boost for the European economy and society, creating many new jobs. In a second step, such a platform should also support the languages of our major trading partners, thus making European companies fittest for the global markets."
Mr. Hummel therefore concludes: “As a language-neutral Digital Single Market is unlikely to arise from market forces alone. The European Commission is therefore well entitled to take the lead in launching a Multilingual Digital Service Infrastructure as a major enabler closing an important gap in the Digital Agenda”.
The full text of Mr. Hummel’s statement is available here
