On November 13th, 2008, Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission (EC) responsible for Information Society and Media, gave the speech entitled ‘Empowering users: the key to the development of the Information Society’ at the Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs’s  (BEUC – The European Consumers’ Organisation) Annual General Assembly.

One of the issues discussed by Commissioner Reding was the future framework for content online.
Mrs. Reding said:

‘I therefore intend to relaunch the "Content Online" debate in 2009 with a clear focus on the consumer in our single market. I believe that Europe has an enormous cultural diversity from which consumers across Europe and also in third countries could benefit. We have a very strong TV and Internet industry. Together with the telecoms, they have the technological means to make access to content more attractive for consumers. We need to bring both aspects together and develop a true single market for content, without unjustified barriers and unnecessary fragmentation. Sometimes this may require us to think out of the box and to leave traditional paradigms behind. You can count on me to start in 2009 an interesting debate on "Content Online in a Single Market for Consumers."’

For Commissioner Reding’s speech, please click here.