Meeting of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection&nbsp;with G&uuml;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, in the EP in Brussels. Statements by G&uuml;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, Evelyne GEBHARDT (S&amp;D, DE), Rapporteur, Dita CHARANZOV&Aacute; (ALDE, CZ), Rapporteur and Robert ROCHEFORT (ALDE, FR)
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Brussels

digital single market (T)

Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

exchange of views

meeting

CHARANZOVÁ, Dita (Renew, CZ)

GEBHARDT, Evelyne (S&D, DE)

OETTINGER, Günther (DE, EC)

ROCHEFORT, Robert (ALDE, FR)

Exchange of views with Günther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society: extracts from the meeting at the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

SOUNDBITE (German), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, "The aim is to implement our digital strategy. We have the legislation brought forward, we have the projects brought forward; we have the aims laid down to promote extra infrastructure. So that for people, users, to be able to use online services but also to make sure that we are more competitive".

SOUNDBITE (German), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, "In parallel to that package, in 2015 we are going to put forward three important set of legislation. The NIS directive, TSM package and the data protection regulation"

SOUNDBITE (German), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, "As far as cybersecurity is concerned the date security will be extremely important for the next few years. If we don't take this priority into account, we'll be losing the battle for the future of this sector. We will have problems with people acceptance with all of this. So security we'll be of major importance. Not only for the people in the EU but also for people in the economy and also for the infrastructure"

SOUNDBITE (German), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, "The digital single market can only to come to the fore if we promote infrastructure, increase the quality of infrastructure. We need to invest billions. That is a task for the telecom industry but also for the sates but also the financial sector. Pan European infrastructure, we have to make sure that smaller towns and villages are linked".

SOUNDBITE (German), Evelyne GEBHARDT (S&amp;D, DE), Rapporteur, "I would like to know what the Commission has in the pipelines. You did refer to territoriality for audio-visual. I hope you are not going to apply the same thing to online trading where we are hoping to get rid of geoblocking. How will that happen?"

SOUNDBITE (English), Dita CHARANZOV&#193; (ALDE, CZ), Rapporteur, "I hope that you agree with me that our goal is to have the level playing field for the companies that we want the next google to be European and we want to build the trust for the consumers."

SOUNDBITE (French), Robert ROCHEFORT (ALDE, FR), MEP, "We know that the US defends their big companies. Sometimes with borderline technics and I would like to know how you are going to defend European companies against that backdrop? We also need giants in Europe. How are you going to reach this goal?"

SOUNDBITE (German), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, "This year I like to reach the stage where we can say that Europe has started to promote Europe's culture and data security linked to development of the NIS platform. That can be a big element in favour of investment in European locations"

SOUNDBITE (German), G&#252;nther OETTINGER, Member of the EC in charge of Digital Economy and Society, "I think in the digital area we should promote start-up where we can, support SMEs, but not against the rest of the industry but with a strong European industry telecoms, Telefonica, Vodafone, Orange, British telecom, Italian companies, Deutsche Telekom and so on. And also with regional and local companies active in the sector"