European digital content: quality, access, use and exploitation, eContentplus. 2005-2008 programme

The European Parliament adopted the report by W.G van VELZEN (EPP-ED, NL). While agreeing with the proposed objectives, MEPs felt that in some cases the wording was too general. They specified, for example, that access to digital content should be facilitated at Community level "in areas of public interest". The Parliament makes the following amendments: - digital content stakeholders refer to content providers (including organisations that create, collect or own digital content) and content users (including organisations and enterprises that are end-users, that re-use and/or add value to digital content); - in the context of the evaluation, the Commission shall report on the consistency of the amount for 2007-2008 with the financial perspective. If applicable, the Commission shall take the necessary steps within the budgetary procedures for 2007-2008 to ensure the consistency of the annual appropriations with the financial perspective; - the Commission shall forward the results of its quantitative and qualitative evaluations to the European Parliament and the Council together with any appropriate proposals for the amendment of this Decision. The results shall be forwarded before presentation of the draft general budget of the European Union for the year 2007 and 2009 respectively; - the financial framework for the implementation of the Community action under this Decision for the period from 1st January 2005 to 31 December 2008 is hereby set at EUR 163 million, of which EUR 55,6 million is for the period until 31 December 2006; - for the period following 31 December 2006, the amount shall be deemed to be confirmed if it is consistent for this phase with the financial perspective in force for the period commencing in 2007; - the annual appropriations for the period from 2005 to 2008 shall be authorised by the budgetary authority within the limits of the financial perspective. An indicative breakdown of expenditure is given in Annex III.�