Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy: State aid for broadcasting, Medienforum, Cologne, Germany, 9 June 2008
[Speech]

The European Commission withdrew its case against Sweden at the European Court of Justice after Sweden amended its Radio and TV Act. In particular, Sweden abolished the licensing system that gave the partly state-owned company Boxer an exclusive right to handle certain digital terrestrial broadcasting services in breach of EU law.
[European Commission Press Release]

The European Commission approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of the Norwegian company Trolltech by the Finnish company Nokia. Nokia is mainly active in the development and supply of mobile handsets and Trolltech is a supplier of software development tools, that is software used to develop software. The European Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition within the European Economic Area (EEA) or a substantial part of it.
[European Commission Press Release]

The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, called on the European Parliament to defend the European Union’s commitment to transparency and the citizens’ right of access to EU documents. This follows the European Commission’s recent proposals to revise the law on public access to documents.
[European Ombudsman Press Release]

The European Commission unveiled a pilot project to ensure cross-border recognition of national electronic identity (eID) systems and enable easy access to public services in 13 Member States. Throughout the EU, some 30 million national eID cards are used by citizens to access a variety of public services such as claiming social security and unemployment benefits or filing tax returns. The European Commission's project will enable EU citizens to prove their identity and use national electronic identity systems (passwords, ID cards, PIN codes and others) throughout the EU, not just in their home country. The plan is to align and link these systems without replacing existing ones. The project will run for three years and receive €10 million funding from the European Commission and an equal contribution from the participating partners.
[European Commission Press Release]

The European Commission adopted a proposal for an EU Council Decision on the establishment of the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS).
[European Commission Press Release]

The European Commission adopted a Communication to the European Parliament, Council and the EESC presenting ideas for the use of Information Society tools in the field of justice. The Communication deals with current and future initiatives which will help promote the European Justice Area.
[European Commission Press Release]

Increasing demand for Internet based services means that there would not be enough addresses to support this expected growth, if no action is taken. Encouraging internet users and providers to adopt the latest Internet Protocol (IP version 6 or IPv6) will provide a massive increase in address space, much in the same way as telephone numbers were lengthened in the 20th century. The European Commission set Europe a target of getting 25% of EU industry, public authorities and households to use IPv6 by 2010, calling for concerted action at European level to get all actors prepared for a timely, efficient change to avoid extra costs for consumers and give innovative European companies a competitive advantage.
[European Commission Press Release]