On 16 March, parliament's EPP group released a position paper on the digital economy in which it presented its objectives and priorities for the coming years.
First, the completion of the digital single market is essential to deliver maximum benefits of the European digital economy. This is why the EPP wants to focus on initiatives that will aim to overcome legal fragmentation as citizens and businesses need a "reliable, fair, transparent and proportionate deregulatory framework to come up with innovative products and ideas".
"For the EPP, the digital single market cannot be implemented without the adoption of a comprehensive EU data protection framework"
Secondly, for the EPP, the digital single market cannot be implemented without the adoption of a comprehensive EU data protection framework. The EPP regards this as one of the main conditions required to increase Europe's competitiveness, while delivering effective online privacy. In that regard, the EPP group will also push for a swift vote on the network and information security directive.
The EPP advocates for net neutrality. For the centre-right political group, it is a prerequisite for fair competition and market cohesion to the benefit of consumers and business. In this context, it will support a finalisation of the telecom single market proposal in 2015.
The EPP also calls for substantial investments in infrastructure - new app-based or accelerated services, including eHealth, eLearning and business services can only be used if there is fast and reliable access to the internet. To achieve this, the EPP calls for a reconsideration of the current application of the EU state aid regime to enable a better roll-out of broadband, for example.
Moreover, the centre-right group supports the development of a clear digital strategy to improve the support to European leaders in innovative services such as cloud computing, big data and the internet of things.
Finally, on intellectual property rights and copyright, the EPP advocates a copyright system that promotes an efficient functioning of value chains between creators, authors, producers, publishers, and other. It wants to put in place a "flexible, business and consumer-friendly licensing schemes for copyright works". It also calls for an analysis at EU level of the principle of territoriality for web content.