Europe Aid activities and support for ICT in

Europe. Aid activities and support for ICT in the Mediterranean region e-AGE 2011 Conference 12 -13 December, Amman, Jordan Dániel WEISS Deputy Head of Economic Cooperation Section EU Delegation to Egypt

European Neighbourhood 1995: Barcelona Process, Euro-Med Partnership to strengthen the relation with Mashriq and Maghreb • peace and stability • zone of shared prosperity: free trade area • rapprochement between peoples Originally MEDA 2007 -2013: ENPI (Partnership Instrument) without Turkey 2008: Union for the Mediterranean: 27+16 (Balkans too) 2014 -2020: ENI (Instrument) € 18. 2 2

Goal of the IS Cooperation is to establish a fruitful dialogue in the field of ICT with the Mediterranean Partners Countries (MPCs), in order • to jointly exploit the potential of these technologies • to foster growth, competitiveness, social cohesion, and cultural diversity 3

Policy Cooperation in IS 1 st Euro Med Ministerial Conference on the Information Society Dundalk, April 2005 2 nd Euro Med Ministerial Conference on the Information Society Cairo, February 2008 3 rd Euro Med Ministerial Conference on the Information Society Brassov (tbc), ? 2012 4

Projects Cooperation in IS Regulatory reform: • NATP 3 project, support to the Euro Med network of telecom regulators = EMERG (Euro Med Regulators Group) and • twinnings with EU Member States' regulators (Egypt, Jordan, Israel) Research communities' networking: • EUMEDCONNECT 3 project = e. Infrastructure 5

Steps ahead • Agreeing on a Work Plan of EMERG for 2012 and beyond with the goal of having stable and pro-competitive regulatory frameworks in the region under the supervision of independent telecom regulatory authorities • Restarting EUMEDCONNECT as it is the only high-capacity IPbased data-communications network serving the research and education communities across the Mediterranean with the goal of having higher participation rates of organisations from the Mediterranean region in ICT R&D collaborative projects (FP 7 and Horizon 2020) 6

Thank you ﺷﻜﺮﺍ Daniel. WEISS@ec. europa. eu +20 2 3749 4680 / 427 7