"The Digital Single Market offers opportunities to everyone. It connects consumers to businesses and gives us better access to goods and services. We need more political willingness for EU Member States to shed the frontiers mentality and to facilitate cross-border access to goods and services."
Maltese MEP Therese Comodini Cachia (EPP) made this statement during a meeting with Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market.
During a meeting with Vice-President Ansip, Comodini Cachia discussed the role of the digital single market in the EU and how overcoming existing online barriers meant better online access to digital goods and services and more growth and jobs.
The Digital Agenda will update EU Single Market rules for the digital era. This will boost the music download business, establish a single area for online payments and further protect EU customers in cyberspace. It will also give people better access to culture and will open new avenues for Maltese artists and creators.
The copyright reform was also on the agenda of the meeting with Comodini Cachia emphasising the need to modernise copyright law.
Next Thursday MEP Comodini Cachia is expected to speak during a plenary debate on copyright at the European Parliament in Strasbourg discussing the report on the implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. The vote on the report for which Comodini Cachia has served as Shadow Rapporteur will be taken after the debate on Thursday.
Controversial issues discussed in this report find the delicate balance between rights of consumers and creators. Other issues such as Freedom of Panorama have been identified for removal from the report so as to retain individual's rights in using creations in public spaces in user generated content.
Comodini Cachia is a member of the Legal Affair Committee (JURI) and member of the EPP Group within the European Parliament.