• Introduction
• I. The End of Techno-Nationalism as a Challenge for German and European Technology Policy
• II. The Role of the European Union in Technology Policy: Taking Stock
• III. Deficiencies and Problem Areas in European Technology Policy
• IV. European Cooperation Is in Germany's Best Interest: Why European Technology Policy Is a Necessity
• V. The Principle of Subsidiarity: A Dead End in the Technology Policy Debate
• VI. The New Political Basis: European Technology Policy as a Strategic Pilot Project
• VII. Getting Specific: The "Information Society" in Europe as a Strategic Pilot Project of Technology Policy
• VIII. Europe on the Way to an Information Society: Suggestions for a Reform of European Technology Policy

With the Maastricht Treaty the European Union entered a new phase of development. The treaty also served to strengthen the position of the European Union in its policies on research, technology and innovations. This is particularly significant for Germany, the country with the largest potential for research and development and with the greatest amount of funding in these areas in the EU. It is naturally in our own interest to examine the economic aspects and the overall socio-political implications of European technology policy, particularly in the communications field, and to take advantage of the opportunities it presents. We need to work on overcoming the present flaws in European technology policy; institutional reforms are imperative.

This paper, presented by the Roundtable on the Humanization of Technology of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, is our second contribution to the technology policy debate. Having looked at the national level in our first discussion paper, "Innovative Technology Policy for Germany", we want to continue the discussion with a statement on European technology policy.

What role does the European Union play in developing a feasible model for the future of the industrial societies of Europe on the brink of the 21st century? Can there be a comprehensive socio-political strategy for the technology policy of the Union and its member states, particularly in regard to the structuring of the information society? In which areas is European policy likely to be a powerful force for change, where does it tend to be weak, and what new policy instruments are needed? This paper is the Roundtable's answer to these questions facing European policy-makers in the field of research and technology policy today.

Bonn, December 1995

The age of techno-nationalism in Europe is over. Even those making German technology policy must accept the fact that, on the verge of the 21st century, urgent social problems such as the improvement of industrial competitiveness, the elimination and prevention of ecological damage, structural long-term unemployment and the economic exclusion of entire groups of people or the dramatic underdevelopment of large parts of our world cannot be solved solely on a national level. Thus international cooperation has become an indispensable component of German technology policy. Today, the technology policy of the Federal Republic of Germany is embedded in a variable geometry of international agreements and organizations. The European Union, which plays a significant role in the central fields of technology policy, is of special importance in this context. Thus, there has been a fundamental change in the economic and institutional framework of technology policy-making and the constellations of social interests involved.

These changes in the institutional structure especially affect a concept of technology policy which relies on the state playing an active role in the social shaping of technological developments. This sort of technology policy is challenged, on the one hand, by an extensive global restructuring of economy and of science ("techno-globalism"), and faces the task of redistributing the responsibilities between the state, the economy and science. But this alone is not sufficient. In addition, policy-makers must on the other hand take into account the new institutional organization of the state in technology policy and decide how responsibilities can best be distributed among different levels of government: the European Union, the national level and the regional level.

Having suggested in its last discussion paper ("Innovative Technology Policy for Germany") that the first type of challenges be met with a new, more active role of the state in the technology policy, the "Roundtable on the Humanization of Technology" takes a closer look at the second type of challenges in this paper, focussing on the role of the European Union in technology policy. This point is also in great need of explanation and discussion. Two questions are at the center of this issue:

* What specifically can the European Union contribute to technology policy, and how can the relationship between the various governmental levels be organized most effectively?

* Will the activities of the European Union meet the demands put on an effective technology policy, and how can the impact of European technology policy be enhanced?

The Roundtable has come to the conclusion that, while the European Union does play a necessary and indispensable role in technology policy, it cannot in its present form fulfill the demands placed upon it. For this reason and in view of the preparation of the EU's Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development and the convening of the 1996 intergovernmental conference, the Roundtable suggests a strategic reorientation of European technology policy and a modernization of its institutions and procedures. The focus of this suggestion is the attempt to integrate technology policy into a wider socio-political concept of the "Information Society", which could serve as a strategic pilot project for European technology policy as well as for German technology policy at the turn of the 21st century.

Thesis 1: The European Union currently plays a significant role in the social organization of technology and the improvement of the competitiveness of industries, which cannot be ignored by German technology policy.

1. With the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty), the European Union received extensive political power in the fields of research and technology policy. The EU is not only charged with "strengthening the scientific and technological bases of Community industry and encouraging it to become more competitive at international level," (Article 130f (1), EC Treaty), it is also authorized under this newly formulated article "[to] promot[e] all the research activities deemed necessary by virtue of other Chapters in this Treaty". On this basis the Council passed the EU's Fourth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development in April 1994, in which a total of 12.3 billion ECU is made available for the support of science and technology from 1994 to 1998.

2. Despite these competences and activities, the importance of the European Union in the area of technology policy continues to be the subject of controversy, especially in the larger member states such as the Federal Republic of Germany. Often the impression is given that the EU is still insignificant in the area of technology policy, despite all the engagement it has shown in the past ten years. In this context reference is often made to the total amount of the EU's research expenditures, which is, as a matter of fact, still rather small. However, such argumentation is misleading and underestimates the actual significance the European activities in technology policy have gained. It is true that the EU's research budget is still small in comparison to the research budgets of several member states. In 1992 50 billion ECU were spent by the twelve member states on publicly financed research; in comparison only 1.8 billion ECU were spent by the EU, that is approximately 3.5%. And of the entire public R&D expenditures in the Federal Republic of Germany in the period from 1987 to 1991, the share funded by the EU was only about 0.4%. However, such crude comparisons lead to a gross underestimation of the actual significance of the EU in technology policy. Two aspects have to be given special consideration in this context.

2.1. First, it is important to consider that despite the large number of programmes it supports, the EU clearly sets thematic focal points in research policy. Key technologies vital to the industrial future of the Union and its member states are, in fact, among these focal points. These include: microelectronics, communications technology, new materials, biotechnology, genetic engineering and other areas. In these focal areas financial support by the European Union is also quantitatively relevant. The largest and most important focal area is without a doubt information and communications technology (I&C technology). With programmes such as ESPRIT and RACE as well as various programmes for the development of applications in I&C technology, the Union has been trying since the mid-1980's to systematically improve the competitiveness of the European information technology industry. These programmes - which are also continuing in the Fourth Framework Programme currently in progress under other names and with new focal points - had a total volume of funding of more than five billion ECU up to now. Thus the shares of funding provided by the member states and by the Union for I&C technology have shifted significantly toward the EU within a few years. Meanwhile a company like Siemens, to name one example, receives approximately half of its public funding, which is only a small fraction of its research budget, from European Union programmes.

2.2. The significance of the European Union in technology policy is not limited to research funding, however. The EU is now active in a multitude of areas which are of consequence for the political regulation of technological developments and industrial competitiveness. When it comes to such issues as establishing guidelines for environmental protection or the regulation of genetic engineering, the liberalization of the telecommunications market or data protection, agreeing on technological norms and standards or the approval of corporate mergers, the EU is a crucial actor, or maybe even the most important one. And in this context it should not be forgotten that by strictly monitoring the public R&D funding in the member states, the Union has, for quite some time now, noticeably restricted the federal and Länder governments' capacity to act in the area of technology policy.

3. The empirical findings are clear and obvious: whenever the social organization of technology and the competitiveness of industries in Europe are at stake, the European Union presently plays a central role. This redistribution of power in technology policy has serious political consequences. Even in the past implementing technology policy either as a nation alone or without the EU was problematic, in the future such action will neither be practical nor possible. And all attempts to limit the activities of the EU to peripheral areas and to secure the dominance of national policy must be viewed as having failed. Therefore, in the future, German technology policy must concentrate on the optimal utilization of the opportunities the EU offers in terms of European technological cooperation. Until now the policy of the German federal government has often been defensive towards the technology policy initiatives of the EU and, as a result, has passed up important opportunities to influence policy design. This is quite regrettable since European technology policy has a number of deficiencies which have substantially reduced its productivity.

Thesis 2: Under the present political and institutional conditions the EU is not able to completely meet the demands placed upon it in the area of technology policy.

1. The EU's technology policy has thus far failed to live up to its potential. With its R&D programmes the Union has successfully intensified cooperation between researchers and research institutes in Europe; and in view of the national egoism which dominated the area of technology policy for a long time, this result should not be underestimated. With these programmes favorable conditions have been created for the further development of a common technology policy. But even in Europe the cooperation of researchers should not be an end in and of itself. The EU's technology policy must be measured by the extent to which its activities contribute toward achieving its contractual goals, especially in regard to the improvement of the competitiveness of European industry. When assessed in these terms, the EU's technology policy exhibits considerable deficiencies. Not only do the majority of evaluations on its research programmes and the framework programmes for research and technological development come to this conclusion, so does the European Commission itself in its review of its policy on research and technology. Again and again the policy's distance from the market and the protracted decision-making processes and administrative procedures are criticized, and rightly so. The study by Metcalfe et al., which on behalf of the Commission investigated the effects of the Union's research programmes on the competitiveness of European industry, was surely justified in coming to the conclusion that the EU "has been unable to provide unequivocal evidence linking its R&D programmes to improved industrial competitiveness". There may be many reasons for this unsatisfactory result, and it must be remembered that as the globalization of technology, markets and companies continues, the chances for success of the European technology policy become considerably worse. All of this, however, should not cover up the fact that the technology policy of the EU has had strategic and institutional deficiencies up to now.

2. Industry-oriented R&D programmes of the EU such as ESPRIT, BRITE and EURAM had a considerable strategic deficiency from the very beginning: they were designed purely as "Technology Push" programmes. The aim of these programmes was to produce a "technology push" which would eventually lead to a substantial improvement of the industrial competitiveness of the Union. The experiences in German technology policy of the 1970's and 1980's suffice to show that the effectiveness of such "Technology Push" programmes is very limited. The most recent evaluation of the ESPRIT programme, the so-called "Dekker Report", also came to the same conclusion, stating: "In particular the industry led, technology push, approach of ESPRIT, whilst demonstrably capable of producing good results, is not achieving the lift in European competitiveness which is now called for". There are two main reasons for this: neglect of the application aspect in the innovation process and disregard for the importance of social innovations.

2.1. For a long time the European support programmes concentrated on the large manufacturers and tried to intensify the cooperation between national "champions" from the various member countries of the Union. The application aspect of the innovation process was widely neglected, however. Application-oriented programmes such as the various telematics programmes have not been able to compensate for the imbalance resulting from an approach that was originally technology- and industry-oriented. Such an approach is, however, problematic for the advancement of the competitiveness of European industry. This is especially true since the existing problems of competitiveness in European industry are caused not so much by technology "gaps" or lack of funds for research, but rather by severe deficiencies in the diffusion and application of generally well-known technologies and their integration into complex technical systems. In recent years even the European Commission repeatedly emphasized "that the main problem of European firms is not primarily the amount of their R&D expenditures, but rather their inadequate ability to turn their research and technology developments into inventions and to turn their inventions into market shares and profits". The result is "a distinct gap between Europe's efforts in basic research and R&D investments on the one hand and the results in the area of innovation and competitiveness on the other."

2.2. One of the main reasons for this innovation gap is the widespread neglect of social innovations in the European R&D programmes and in the policies surrounding them. And this neglect exists despite the fact that it is quite well known that if applications of modern technology are to succeed, they must go hand in hand with investments in the qualification of employees, new forms of work organization, new production concepts and new forms of management. Innovation is not only a technological process, it is also a social one. The experiences with the implementation of I&C technology in companies and public administrations have shown that the lack of complementary social innovations is often the decisive bottleneck in the introduction and efficient utilization of new technologies.

3. These strategic weaknesses in the European technology policy are compounded by considerable institutional deficiencies. Currently the EU's political and administrative structures are only able to meet the demands placed on the technology policy to a limited extent. The decision-making process is protracted, its results often consist of unsatisfactory compromises and the administrative realization of decisions is cumbersome. Such structures are a special problem in the areas of research, technology and industrial competitiveness. This is especially true since the competitiveness of industries in technology-intensive sectors increasingly depends on the companies' ability to shorten development time and product cycles, to concentrate limited resources on areas of strategic significance and to react quickly and flexibly to new technology opportunities and economic demands.

However, it would be wrong to blame only the European Commission for these institutional deficiencies and to interpret them as the inevitable result of a large bureaucracy, which many unjustifiably consider to be too large. The core of the institutional problems of European technology policy is the fact that this policy must be developed in a framework of complicated interactions among national and European actors and institutions. In this context, it should not be overlooked that the representatives of the national research administrations play a key role in the European decision-making processes. Due to the unstable balance of power between the Council, the Commission and the Parliament on the one hand, and between the EU and its member states on the other, these processes are usually extremely complicated and correspondingly lengthy, insofar as they are formalized at all. The co-decision procedure according to Article 189b EC Treaty, which was recently applied in the decision on the Fourth Framework Programme, is a good example of how complicated the decision-making process can be.

Under such conditions quick and appropriate decisions can only be negotiated if a high degree of consensus on the goals and priorities of European technology policy exists among all participating parties. In the past this has not been the case and, in view of the striking differences between the national research systems and research potential among the member states, cannot be expected in the future. The negotiations concerning the EU's framework programmes and its numerous specific programmes have shown that there are not only multi-faceted cultural differences among the EU member states, but also a number of fundamental conflicts of interest, be they motivated by economic, regional or socio-political reasons. As a result, criteria of excellence are not the only yardstick in the actual practice of funding; a complicated network of political selection criteria has always had to be taken into consideration as well, such as the "adequate" participation of small and medium-sized companies, the "just" return of funds to the member states or the "adequate" participation of economically less-developed member states. This is certainly also a cause for the wide distribution of the European funds and the low level of strategic coherence of the programmes, which has been criticized repeatedly.

The fact that the organization of competences for technology policy in the European Commission also exhibits a series of deficiencies only serves to aggravate the situation. The current organization of powers is ill-suited to accomplish the tasks at hand. The administration of the research programme itself is divided among numerous offices; and the same is true for other domains vital to technology policy (transportation, telecommunication, etc.). In the past the organization and re-organization of offices was often governed by short-term political expediency rather than sound, task-oriented planning. These structural deficiencies are especially problematic since the coordination between the offices of the Commission is clearly inadequate. Without a doubt all of this favors a fragmented assessment and processing of problems and the incremental development of programmes.

Due to all these deficiencies, it is difficult for the European Union under the present conditions to make effective use of the wide range of powers which it now contractually possesses in technology policy. For this reason it is thoroughly understandable that the European programmes are often criticized and that a further increase in the EU's research budget is viewed skeptically. The consequence of this analysis cannot, however, be a re-nationalization of the technology policy, i.e. a redistribution of tasks and responsibilities onto the member states. There are a number of good and compelling reasons to continue intense European cooperation in the development and utilization of modern technology. This is why the improvement of the EU's ability to solve problems and to act effectively in the field of technology policy must have first priority in the future. In order to achieve this, a strategic reorientation of technology policy will have to go hand in hand with institutional modernization, i.e. institutional and procedural reform.

Thesis 3: Even from the viewpoint of the Federal Republic of Germany, the EU member state with the largest research potential, there are many good reasons to turn certain functions and powers in the field of technology policy over to the European Union.

1. European technology policy is not an end within itself, and the European Union is not necessarily the level at which all technology policy-making should take place. Since regional and national technology policy is well established and often successful, European programmes and projects need special justification. However, when establishing this European "added value", we must take into consideration that the Europeanization of technology policy usually has a complex rationality underlying it. In order to better understand the complex rationality of European technology cooperation, it is useful to systematically differentiate between three problem areas: (i) problems for which European cooperation is obviously to the advantage of all participants and solitary national action is thus impractical; (ii) problems for which European cooperation is neither directly nor symmetrically advantageous, but for which solitary national action is no longer possible and (iii) problems for which European cooperation can be beneficial in the long run even though solitary national action is still possible and few immediate advantages of European cooperation are evident.

1.1. First, it is obvious that there are numerous sectors in which technological cooperation would be advantageous for all member states. These tend to involve problems that do not stop at national borders: problems in climatology and oceanography; the common utilization of large, costly scientific devices in fields such as fusion research; even an integrated transportation infrastructure can no longer be sensibly planned on a national level; and technical safety standards, whether they involve reactor safety, genetic engineering or data protection become truly effective only when they can also claim validity outside their own territorial borders. The know-how that stands to be gained and the costs that can be reduced in these areas as well as many others are uncontested, and up to now the German policy has mainly aimed at limiting the activities of the EU in R&D policy to areas such as these in which the benefits of cooperation are clear.

1.2. However, it is often overlooked that European cooperation can also be beneficial where the fruits of cooperation for the member states are not so obvious. This includes technology sectors in which national programmes and projects are no longer possible or practical due to the globalization of technology, markets and companies. The information and communications sector is an especially good example of this. Due to a dense network of global alliances and the quickly increasing internationalization of research, development and production, the European information technology firms have gradually liberated themselves from the corset of national policies. Thus approximately 90% of the technological collaboration efforts of German information technology companies involve a foreign partner. The basis for the support of national industrial "champions" as practiced for a long time in all major European countries was removed by this globalization. Of course, the technology policy of the European Union cannot be a substitute for this. The attempt to promote the formation of European "champions" with the help of European programmes is unlikely to be successful in view of the global organization and cooperation of companies and the dynamics of global markets. However, experience has shown that the European information technology programmes may serve a valuable purpose, despite all the justified criticism that is heard. While European programmes cannot be a substitute for global cooperation, they can be used by companies as a stepping stone on the way to global alliances better than national policies can.

1.3. Finally, it must be considered that even if the benefits of European cooperation are not immediate or direct and even if national solutions are possible, there can still be good reasons for European cooperation. For a country such as the Federal Republic of Germany, this is especially true in the case of technology policy. In view of how open and integrated the European markets are, the technological strengthening of the entire European region by means of common programmes must also be of interest to Germany. A concentration of programmes and resources on the "sprinters" among the European countries, as has been repeatedly called for in the past and is also striven for with the EUREKA initiative, is shortsighted. Such a policy inevitably widens the gap between the technology potential and the industrial competitiveness of the European countries and could have considerable negative effects on the efficiency of European markets and the political acceptance of the European integration process over the long term. The result could be an increase of protectionist measures and demands, the intensification of the competition for subsidies among the European countries, the strengthening of migration movements within the community, the stimulation of an anti-European populism and more.

Thesis 4: The principle of subsidiarity is not a suitable instrument for providing an easily manageable and precise distribution of responsibilities between the European Union and the member states in technology policy.

1. The principle of subsidiarity is at the center of the current discussion about the appropriate distribution of responsibilities between national and European technology policy. Especially in the Federal Republic of Germany, the principle of subsidiarity has become such a "magic formula" in the discussion of European policy that it often seems as though the only problem left to solve is how to apply the formula correctly. However, such conceptions are unrealistic. Practical experience with the principle of subsidiarity in European technology policy has shown that it is not possible to make a precise and long-lasting distinction between the tasks of the EU and those of the national funding agencies. There is an important structural reason for this: the differences in the economic, scientific and technological capacity of the European nations and regions.

2. A brief look at the enormous differences between the research potential of the EU member states makes the problem clear. At the beginning of the 1990's, for example, the research expenditures in the Federal Republic of Germany, the EU member state with the highest R&D expenditures, were 100 times greater than those of Greece, the country with the lowest research expenditures in the community. 75 per cent of all the research expenditures in the community can be accounted for by the "big three" (Germany, France, Great Britain). Under such conditions the responsibilities and resources in technology policy cannot be divided according to fixed principles and standardized procedures; all this becomes a political problem. This is especially true since the weaker member states can ask for more European programmes on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity and, on the basis of the same principle and the same criteria, the stronger member states can refuse an expansion of European activities with reference to their own programmes. As disputes about the EU's framework programmes and its numerous specific programmes have shown in the past, mutual solutions agreed to by the member states are difficult if not impossible to arrive at under such conditions. The political consequences of this constellation are obvious: instead of mitigating the political conflict between the member states, the situation threatens to be aggravated by the principle of subsidiarity.

3. In view of the structural problems of applying the principle of subsidiarity in technology policy, all attempts to make the principle of subsidiarity more feasible with new or additional criteria will remain largely unsuccessful. Moreover, such attempts are aimed in the wrong direction from the start. They overlook not only the fact that national and European policies cannot necessarily replace one another, but also the fact that in certain conditions they can strengthen one another with their positive effects. More importantly, the numerous functional interactions existing between technology policy and other policy areas are completely ignored. Due to such interdependencies, a clear-cut and long-lasting allocation of responsibilities to individual portfolios and policy levels becomes an unrealistic goal in any case. Thus, for a technology policy that is not rooted in narrow-minded compartmental thinking but considers itself to be future-oriented and cross-sectional, the principle of subsidiarity must be a dead end.

Thesis 5: If national technology policy is to use the structural opportunities that the European Union offers, then it must not enter into the petty tug-of-war over projects and responsibilities that is linked with the principle of subsidiarity. Instead it should issue the European Union a political mandate for a limited number of strategic pilot projects.

1. To begin with, European technology policy needs a new political basis. The petty discussion about the division of responsibilities between the community and the member states in the past few years has shown that a formal allocation of powers alone does not suffice if the possibilities of a joint technology policy are to be fully taken advantage of. European technology policy will only develop to its full potential if it is more focused and concentrates on a few strategic pilot projects. The Union's framework programmes designed for five years with their numerous specific programmes are not suited to provide European technology policy with the necessary strategic focus.

2. An approach centered around strategic pilot projects has several advantages over the programme-oriented course of action followed up to now. Instead of being fragmented into a multitude of often competing national and regional programmes, the strengths of European technology policy can be consolidated. And such strategic pilot projects, which should be planned for a period of five to ten years, will give both the economy and the sciences important guidelines as to what long-term results society expects from technological development. In contrast to the programme-oriented course of action taken in technology policy up to now, strategic pilot projects as they are understood here should be integrative in several respects. They should be:

* territorially integrated by the networking of policy levels, from the European level down to the local communities;

* functionally integrated by the integration of sectoral policies, ranging from research policy, environmental policy, transport policy, telecommunications policy, media policy and education policy to competition policy etc.

* socially integrated by including all the important social groups and interest groups in a comprehensive structuring dialogue.

European technology policy in this sense would become a open-ended and public political project.

3. This is also true in respect to the question of what thematic emphases the strategic pilot projects in European technology policy should have. If one reviews earlier discussions of technology policy, quite a number of issues and technological areas come to mind, for example: the development of a transportation system that conserves human and environmental resources; increasing energy efficiency; the development of intelligent, job-creating production concepts ("the learning factory"). In the White Paper on "Growth, Competitiveness, Employment: The Challenges and Ways Forward into the 21st Century" adopted by the EU Council of Ministers in December 1993, the concluding Chapter 10, which is often overlooked, is entitled "Thoughts on a new development model for the Community". It argues that the present economic concept of growth must be changed to achieve sustainable development: "The inadequate use of available resources - too little labour, too much use of environmental resources - is clearly not in line with the preferences of society as they are revealed through the democratic system". On this basis the Roundtable suggests making the transition to an "information society" in Europe one of the pilot projects of the future European technology policy.

Thesis 6: The political organization of the transition to an "information society" in Europe could serve as a strategic pilot project of European technology policy.

1. The transition to an "information society" is especially suited to be a strategic pilot project for European technology policy. So much has been written and speculated about the far-reaching economic and social significance of information technology, and the hopes, expectations and fears connected with it are presently being fueled by public debate centering on the "information highway" and "multimedia". Modern, high-performance communications networks are continually becoming a more and more vital component in the infrastructure of Europe. The extent to which this infrastructure is up to date is a very significant factor in determining the individual standard of living and industrial competitiveness. Even if some of the prognoses prove to be false, it cannot be disputed that decisive stimuli for the economy and society, for companies and private households, for work and recreation will originate from information technology in the coming years. For this reason technology policy must comprehend the opportunities and risks associated with developing an "information society" as a comprehensive structural task worth focussing its efforts on. This task extends far beyond the narrow range of promoting research; it affects various other policy fields, namely telecommunications policy, media policy, education policy, competitive policy, employment and social policy and much more. Thus the development and application of new, interactive forms of information and communications technology is a particularly good example for the type of strategic pilot project we are calling for in technology policy, one that involves a cross-section of portfolios.

2. The Roundtable is well aware of the fact that the term "information society", which today stands for the far-reaching changes made possible by interactive information and communication technology, is burdened. In the tradition of theories of the "post-industrial" society as developed by Daniel Bell and others, the theory of the "information society" as it originated in the 1960's was initially based on the assumption that the realization of the information and communication technology is a product of its own dynamics and legitimacy. Social conflicts and disparities were given no consideration in the early concept of the information society. Thus there are good reasons to view the term "information society" with skepticism. In fact, however, the term appears to have freed itself recently from its original technocratic connotation. In the current technology policy debate, it does not refer to a relapse into an obsolete, deterministic approach toward technology, but rather to the opposite, namely a conscious attempt to take more of the societal and political dimension into consideration in the development of the information and communications technology. It is in this sense that the term is used from here on.

3. The European Commission is due credit for having recognized the opportunities for the further development of Europe linked with information and communications technology early on and placing them in a larger socio-political context. In its White Paper on "Growth, Competitiveness and Employment", the Commission described the transition to an "information society" as a decisive challenge for the Union at the turn of the 21st century through which an important contribution to the solution of economic and ecological problems in Europe can be made. With the Bangemann Group's report on "Europe and the Global Information Society" and the action plan "Europe's Way to the Information Society", the Commission's concepts were made more concrete and developed further. Thus the European Union did much to stimulate debate in the member states and at international conferences, as evidenced by the G-7 summit in February 1995 in Brussels on the "Global Information Infrastructure (GII)".

4. We must not overlook, however, that the European Commission's concepts and suggestions on the "information society" are linked with considerable risks. At present it must be feared that the project of making Europe an "information society" is in danger of becoming a comprehensive deregulation programme. In this context the Bangemann Group's report is characteristic. In view of the installment and expansion of the European telecommunications networks this report states: "The driving force will be the private investor. Monopolies and a framework which is adverse to competition are the actual obstacles for such private commitment". And from that statement the report concludes that : "A new framework which allows for unlimited competition is essential for the creation of new markets". We do not dispute the significance of competition for the formation of an "information society" in Europe. But competition alone is not enough. The path to becoming an "information society" will only lead to a socially acceptable and socially accepted result if it is not guided solely by technical visions and the commercial calculations of industry and the network operators. The results of the most recent surveys on the "information society" must be taken very seriously in this context. They have shown that European citizens only have moderate interest in the new services of the "information society" and also that they see danger in the new technologies. Incidentally, the critical attitude toward the new technologies is, in this instance, not merely a German peculiarity, but rather one shared by other EU member states as well.

1. If the European Union is to make a significant contribution toward developing the "information society", it cannot merely "deregulate" the markets. If Europe's transition into an "information society" is to be successful, it must be conceived as a comprehensive socio-political task. A strategic reorientation and an institutional reform of European technology policy will be vital parts of this effort.

2. The first and foremost requirement the European Union must fulfill if it is to meet society's high expectations regarding the transition to an "information society" is a comprehensive reorientation of its strategies in the field of technology policy. Not only does the emphasis put on the various domains and instruments of technology policy need to be reconsidered, so does the narrower area of policies on the promotion of research and technology. The most important domains and instruments for the political organization of the "information society" are:

* active regulation,

* an application-oriented approach in the promotion of technology,

* an innovation-oriented public demand,

* a democratic organization of the new, interactive media.

2.1. Active regulation: Breaking down the barriers limiting free entry to markets ("deregulation") and agreeing on common standards will not alone suffice to achieve the development of an "information society" which is to meet the needs of society at large. On the way to the "information society" the state will be challenged in numerous ways. The "deregulated" markets emerging as the PTT monopolies are broken up - a process hastened by directives of the European Commission - will need a comprehensive and quite novel type of regulation if the benefits expected from free competition are to become reality. The talk of "re-regulation" in this context is not surprising, and it is entirely accurate. In the future, the regulative policy will be the most important instrument of technology policy to influence the political organization of the "information society". Its conception, organization and administration are of decisive significance. This must be kept in mind not only during the continuing debate over the powers of the European Union in the regulation of telecommunications, but also during the scheduled consultations regarding the next step of the "Postal Reform" in Germany. Thus, the new institutional framework governing telecommunications markets must ensure that the possibilities necessary for the political shaping of an "information society" be maintained.

A technology policy aimed at ensuring that the development of the "information society" will be socially acceptable and tailored to the needs of the citizens must actively and creatively use the instrument of regulatory policy. The most important areas of active regulation include:

* guaranteeing the provision of basic information services for the entire population ("universal service"). The development of the "information society" must not lead to a division of society in which one group is continuously excluded from accessing and using information. The provision of universal service is therefore an indispensable component of the "information society" of the future. For the further development and organization of such a universal service three principles must be adhered to: (i) The scope of the universal service, its features and the conditions for its use must be defined politically; these aspects cannot be governed solely by market forces. (ii) In view of the numerous possibilities for use and the far-reaching social importance of the new interactive information and communications services, the universal service cannot remain limited to the basic telephone service designed to transmit speech. It must include all services required for participation in political and public life. (iii) In addition, the universal service must be understood as a dynamic concept, i.e. it must be reviewed regularly and adjusted to the technical, economic and social development of the "information society". Both the European Union and its member states are responsible in equal measure for guaranteeing universal service. Thus, the definition of minimum standards for "universal service" must be a high-priority task for the EU so that equal conditions can be created for the users and suppliers of information and communications services throughout Europe.

* the prevention of quasi-monopolies and the abuse of market power. The concentration of market power and its potential abuse are among the most serious problems of the emerging "information society". In every key market of the information society - the telecommunications sector, the entertainment industry and the software market - there is already a strong concentration of market power. The existing oligopolies are likely be further strengthened by mergers and strategic alliances. This process of concentration poses a grave threat to the "information society" because it threatens to limit the diversity of information, programmes and services and to restrict their use. With this in mind it is obvious that competition must be effectively controlled on the European level in order to ensure that the development of the "information society" is actually oriented towards the needs of the citizens and not merely towards the profitability of telecommunications and media companies. In this context the deregulation of the telecommunications market must not lead to a situation in which public monopolies are merely replaced with private monopolies and new suppliers of services only have a chance in a market niche.

* the guarantee and continued development of existing protective rights. The new integrated and interactive information and communications technologies encroach on the existing individual protective rights in a wide variety of ways. This not only affects the protection of privacy, which is exposed to numerous new threats in the public communication networks, but also consumer protection (by electronic shopping, electronic banking), the protection of copyright, labour protection (in the case of telecommuting, for example) and data protection. Some of these rights have become fundamental elements of democratic industrial societies, and if the "information society" is to be accepted - indeed, if it is to be realized at all - it will be crucial to guarantee their protection as new technologies are introduced. We do not want to imply that it would be advisable to cling to traditional regulations; technology policy is called upon to further develop and amend the existing body of regulations so that new technological opportunities can be implemented in a technically efficient and socially responsible manner.

2.2. Application-oriented support of technology: Financial support of technology will also play an important role in the transition to the "information society" of the 21st century. This is an area in which the European Union makes a vital contribution. However, the effectiveness of funding must be improved over the long-term by modifying and expanding the approach employed in the following ways:

* The transition to an approach emphasizing the application and diffusion of technology - which was called for and, to some extent, realized already in the programmes for the support of information technology initiated in the Fourth Research Framework Programme - should be intensified. In view of the regional and cultural diversity of Europe, emphasis should not be placed on funding a few large projects, but rather on how to expand the breadth and diversity of the acquisition and application of new information and communications technology. This is essential if a productive competition on innovations between the member states and regions of the EU is to evolve.

* the vertical cooperation between manufacturers and users must be strengthened. The key to a technological system tailored to suit the needs of the market is the interface between manufacturers and users. Only when users' needs are articulated early on and are integrated into the process of technology development can these needs find the appropriate response. Therefore the various user groups must participate in the development of the new information and communications technologies. Only in this way can the necessary regard for the social dimension of human interaction with machines in the creation of a technical system be achieved. For this reason the development of functional and user-friendly software, for example, requires intense cooperation with potential users, since the programmes otherwise will either not be used or, at best, suboptimally. And the users' own concept of their needs as well as their knowledge and their abilities can only be determined in a participatory process. The initiation and establishment of the cooperative relationship between manufacturers and users must, therefore, be a top-priority goal of the European R&D programmes. In these programmes it must be guaranteed that the projects are actually open-ended and do not merely serve as a testing ground.

* the integration of social innovations must be encouraged in all projects supported by the EU. The projects should not concentrate on technical solutions only, they must also serve as a field of experimentation in which new types of regulation and new forms of organization and interaction can be tested. Such experiments could involve, for example, the introduction of new technologies in companies or the restructuring of firms, both of which can lead to social innovations. Important elements here would be offering employees more responsibility for their own area of work, and discovering the conditions necessary for organizational learning in and among companies as well as the opportunities such learning may open up.

2.3. Innovation-oriented public demand. Technology policy often neglects to seize the great creative opportunities presented be the public sector's demand for services and equipment. This potential demand is particularly important in the area of information technology. The expertise and prognoses currently available on the themes of "information society" and "multimedia" all assume that the public sector will be one of the primary application fields for the new, interactive information and communications technology. This is the case for a wide spectrum of traditional public domains (such as education, vocational training and health) and for all levels of government all the way down to the cities and municipalities. In this context the Bangemann Group stated accurately: "The cities in particular play an extremely important role in the creation of early demand and in heightening the citizens' awareness of the advantages of new services. In certain instances public authorities, as the first large users, can make the usefulness of these services clear". An expert opinion drawn up by Kubicek et al. under auspices of the Office for Technology Assessment of the German Bundestag states "that multimedia technology can contribute to improving public administration services and enhancing their attractiveness for citizens, as well as to integrating isolated, disadvantaged or handicapped groups of people". A systematic, innovation-oriented use of the new interactive information and communications technologies could make an important contribution to the "Modernization of the State", i.e. to a reform of public administration and civil service which aims to increase the efficiency and flexibility of the public sector and improve the citizens' opportunities for participation. In this context the statements of Kubicek et al. are food for thought: "the technical facilities in many sectors of public administration ... have remained far behind the quick-paced technological development of the past few years". The need for action in this area is obvious, as is the importance of the vertical networking of different levels of government. A pilot project on the "information society" can only be a successful part of Europe's technology policy if it is linked to the strategies and activities of the member countries, regions and communities.

2.4. Democratic participation in the design of interactive media: The public's active participation in the design and use of the new (and the old) information systems must be ensured. Interested citizens must not be forced into the role of mere consumers. The practical experience of citizens, their imagination and creativity are indispensable for the development of new, interactive media. In order to activate and use this potential, technology policy must find new approaches. The state's role in this process will be, for example:

* promoting and institutionalizing the formation of an interested public;

* offering public forums for an exchange of ideas between interested citizens, technical experts and politicians;

* acting as a moderator in public discussions and taking an active part in the realization of joint solutions.

Europe's way forward into an "information society" must be made the subject of wide public discussion. This must be a priority for technology policy if the project of the "information society" is not to prove to be a technocratic dead end. Actors at all levels of government - European as well as national, regional and local - must take responsibility for initiating and institutionalizing a democratic policy debate on this basic issue.

3. However, new concepts and strategies are not enough. The European Union will only be able to make an effective contribution to the socially responsible development of modern technology and to the improvement of Europe's industrial competitiveness when its institutions and procedures have been extensively reformed. Such an institutional modernization, naturally, has its limits. Since the complicated and lengthy decision-making process and the deficiencies it causes tend to be anchored in the organizational principles of the European Union itself, far-reaching institutional reforms would require a fundamental change in the contractual basis of the European Union. Since this is not the topic of this discussion paper, the following suggestions are of smaller scope, calling for changes in the political and administrative structures and procedures governing the Union's research and technology policies. A pragmatic institutional reform of European technology policy should include at least the following elements:

* dispensing with the two-stage law-making procedure presently required for the approval of research programmes of the European Union. In view of the lengthy decision-making process, only the framework programme should be subject to approval by the Council and the Parliament. In future, the approval of the Council and the Parliament should not be required for specific programmes. This would provide relief for the decision-making process and speed it up without significantly limiting the influence of the European Parliament and the member states on community R&D policy. This is well justified because the thematic focus and the budgetary planning of the specific programmes are already determined in the framework programme. To strengthen the European Parliament's opportunities to monitor the specific programmes' progress, the implementation of the framework programme should be executed in two phases, and the allocation of funds for the second phase should depend on the approval of Parliament; this procedure is already being practiced to a certain extent in the Fourth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.

* the reorganization of the responsibilities within the Commission. Responsibility for research and technology policy needs to be consolidated within the European Commission. The goal of an administrative reorganization must be to eliminate the fragmentation of authority in this policy area wherever it stands in the way of executing tasks properly. Separating authority for the ESPRIT programme from authority for other programmes on information and technology was not a good move. Instead the programmes on information and communications technology should be administered under one roof.

* the improvement of coordination between the departmental offices of the Commission. Due to the cross-sectional character of European technology policy, it can only be successful if an effective mechanism for coordination among the departmental offices of the Commission is established. As an instrument for horizontal coordination, short-term "Task Forces" could be called into being to deal with specific subjects for a specific length of time, as the European Commission has initiated in the past. The Task Forces currently in action in the research and technology policy sector are, however, too thematically limited and too technically oriented. In order to meet the great need for coordination connected with the "Information Society" project proposed here, such a Task Force should be created.

* the decentralization of programme administration. Effective programme administration requires a detailed knowledge of the local circumstances as well as regular monitoring and expert appraisal of the projects being funded. This, in turn, requires not only a considerable amount of personnel, but also close contact with those benefiting from the research and technology funding, i.e. the companies, research institutes and universities. Neither of these requirements are currently met by the offices of the Commission, which is why a mere expansion of the central offices would hardly suffice to improve the programme administration. Decentralization is a much better answer to the problem; there are many ways to implement it. The most logical is shifting the management function over to the programme's target group, for example, by transferring part of the project administration to the project groups themselves. But a transfer of responsibilities to existing organizations and administrative units in the member states is also possible. However, this requires that the corresponding capacity and competence are present there. In any case a clear division of responsibilities between central offices and decentralized organizations is crucial for the success of such a decentralization of programme management. Programme planning, project assignment and the distribution of funds should be the exclusive tasks of the Commission's offices, while the decentral organizations could take on such tasks as publishing information on programmes, advising interested parties and monitoring and counseling project groups. This could not only reduce the workload of the Commission's offices and speed up the cumbersome administration of the programmes, but it could also improve access to the European programmes for small and medium-sized companies.

* the introduction of a two-stage application procedure. The present application procedure is very demanding both for those submitting project applications and for those processing and evaluating them. In view of the strong over-booking of the EU's specific programmes this has led to an unnecessary waste of resources. This situation will become even more problematic as the transition to an application- and diffusion-oriented funding approach and a greater emphasis on projects of social innovation takes place. The institutions and organizations sought for cooperation on such projects will only be prepared to participate if the application process is simplified. A two-stage application process in which a selection of promising themes and participants is made on the basis of a short application describing the strategic goals, the applications and the effects of the proposed project could make a great contribution to lowering the entry barriers to the European R&D programmes.