This article is more than 1 year old

Steelie Neelie eats crow, welcomes mere €1bn Euro broadband fund

From 'regret' to 'a great week for Europe’s Digital Agenda' in a year

A year after Neelie Kroes expressed severe displeasure at budget cuts that reduced funding for the Connecting Europe Facility project from €9.2bn to €1bn, the vice-president of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda has welcomed formal allocation of the smaller sum.

The Connecting Europe Facility hoped to spend the cash on “broadband investment and pan-European digital public services” to get the continent ready for all sorts of electronicall-delivered services. As we reported at the link above, the €9.2bn to €1bn plunge in funding came about largely because of the UK's concerns about the project's suitability.

The smaller budget was signed off this week and Kroes has managed to enthuse about that milestone, saying that “Coming on top of political agreement on our e-Identification regulation and proposals to reduce the cost of broadband rollout, this is a great week for Europe’s Digital Agenda” in the canned statement about the decision.

“Giving priority to “building-block” services that are reusable across all sectors, such as eID, eSignature, eInvoicing and Automated Translation, CEF Digital will gradually build up a digital eco-system in support of a true digital single market without digital barriers,” she adds.

Kroes' blog, usually a font of enthusiasm, is silent on the topic at the time of writing. ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like