European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso today unveiled his platform to win a new five year term in office. He promised that the Commission will work for a successful exit from the financial crisis, tackle climate change and advance a "people's Europe". For us at Google, the most important signal was the scale of his declared ambition to spur a digital revolution. The President's paper repeated the word "transform" nine times and "radical" four times - a "Europe committed to the radical transformation towards a knowledge-based society" is, for Google, an essential starting point to address huge societal challenges we face. The paper emphasises the need to invest in the new skills for the jobs of tomorrow, and sets an ambitious program to bring fast speed Internet across the European Union. Importantly, Barroso aims to bridge the divide between Europe's digital haves and have nots. Naturally, we are particularly excited that the "Commission will develop a European Digital Agenda (accompanied by a targeted legislative programme) to tackle the main obstacles to a genuine digital single market, " echoing recent calls made by the European Digital Media Association EDiMA (Google is a member). But we would have liked to see more analysis of the new dynamics of innovation. Presiden Barroso's platform avoids mentioning the academic insights to be found in works such Wikinomics or We Think . Social networking media (such as Facebook and Twitter) are transforming the way people communicate and organise. These collaborative sites are powerful engines both driving forward economic growth and for addressing the big societal challenges the Commission wants to address. As we move forward, Google will discussing these opportunities with policy makers. Posted By Simon Hampton, Director of European Public Affairs
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