Among the voluminous clouds of hot air emanating from Brussels as the European Community searches for ways to revitalise the ravaged economies of member states is a proposal for a string of trans-European networks linking businesses and citizens across the continent, and according to Reuter, Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann will contribute chapters to a paper to to be presented to the December European Council meeting, on the information society and trans-European networks: depressingly, all the pressure looks likely to be to throw money at the concept where a single directive to bring forward total telecommunications de-regulation across the Community to 1995 at the latest would achieve far more in the way of new networks and services than any amount of state cash trammelled with bureaucracy; encouragingly, Bangemann is expected to stress the importance of convincing Europeans to think of information as a commercial product instead of as something that the state should provide (at a loss).
