It also means preparation of reports together with the Member States and the Commission on issues which have been requested by Brussels or which the Member States and the Commission deem important to be transmitted to Brussels.
At the beginning of each Presidency the member state assuming the function presents its program for the upcoming six months. Many of the agenda items are given and carried over from the previous presidency and represent the continuous work of the Union. However, the incumbent may bring in some issues and naturally the incumbent can influence the priorities.
But overall, the Presidency acts like an honest broker advancing the overall interests of the European Union and giving less prominence to national aspirations and priorities. Finland has a quite vast area of issues on its agenda during the presidency.
Finland has decided to put particular emphasis on competitiveness of the European Union. The discussion on challenges presented by globalisation will be continued and we will strive to look at the competitiveness of the Union in a comprehensive way. Finland will emphasize the further development of the single market, especially services and energy, innovation, improvement in productivity incl.
improvement of working conditions and the development of a Union-wide energy policy. External relations are an important part of the Union's activities. During Finland's presidency summit meetings will be held, i.e., between the European Union and the Republic of Korea, and with China back to back with the very important 6th Summit of ASEM, which will be held in Helsinki on September 10-11, 2006. Finland places particular importance to the ASEM Summit to make it a success and also to stake out recommendations to further deepen the relation between the Union and Asia.
Some aspects of recent developments in the ICT sector
The DMB and WiBro solutions that have been developed in the Republic of Korea are used on a trial basis in some European countries. The Soccer World Cup has been used as a test bed for these and other technologies with similar properties. Finland is presently launching mobile broadcasting and is in the process of selecting operators. Finland has opted for DVBH technology, a technology that is used on trial basis in many European countries presently and approved by ETSI in November 2004 on the initiative of Nokia.
This technology is based on digital broadcasting. It is perhaps worth noting that Finland will discontinue analog TV-broadcasting from 2007 when all programmes will be in digital format. On WiBro Finland has given a licence for an operator to build up a new digital mobile network using OFDM-technology.
The other alternative was a CDMA-based technology but OFDM was chosen as it is from the start on designed for Internet use. With this technology, which provides mobile services, phone calls are done over VoIP and Internet multimedia services are also available.
Different technologies are being developed.
In RoK you have presently also satellite-based mobile broadcasting being offered in parallel with the terrestrial DMB one, which is free for the customers whereas the satellite one requires a monthly subscription. It is too early to say which technologies will finally prevail, but from the consumer's point of view one of the most important aspects is that different technologies are interoperational.
For consumers the decisive factor is connectivity irrespective of location. So they will not be very happy with solutions that require different appliances in different countries, as is the case with mobile phones today. Consumers welcome the roaming arrangements together with the 3G phones, as this will overcome the present problems posed by different technologies.
Personally I have found it most annoying that my Korean phones are only operational in RoK - now the situation is improving. I hope these kinds of limitations will be history with the new mobile technologies whichever technologies are opted for in the end.
Finland is one of the most advanced economies in the ICT sector. Finland is among the leading producers and users of information and communications technology. The share of the ICT sector of Finland's GDP is around 7 %. It is comparable to the share of the sector in US and Denmark. It is somewhat higher than the Western European average and a bit lower than in Sweden. Mobile phone density is the highest in the world. 70 per cent of Finns own a cellular phone. The number of Internet users is also among the highest in the world. Broadband access is less prominent that in ROK, the top performer in this regard. One reason for this is that Finland is a large country, three times the size of ROK but with only 5,2 million inhabitants.
Thus, broadband access is mainly available in urban areas where a fixed network is economically viable. However, new wireless solutions are expected to gradually widen the access also to the sparsely populated rural areas. The most important company in the ICT sector in Finland is Nokia, the world's leading cellular phone producer.
The company has one of its major production units in ROK. But in addition to Nokia we have a number of companies working in this field. There are some 3000 small and medium- sized companies that supply both software and hardware products as well as services related to the ICT sector. Just to mention a few: Elcoteq is a leading electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company with original design manufacturing capabilities in the communications technology field and Perlos is one of the worlds leading electro-mechanical module suppliers to telecommunications, healthcare and automotive industries. They have production units not only in Finland but also in countries like Hungary, China, India and Brazil. F-secure is a well-known company for data security solutions and among many others Housemarque Oy and Digital Chocolate Ltd. are producing games.
Finland and the Republic of Korea are cooperating in the ICT field despite that our major ICT actor Nokia is not actively operating on the Korean market, a clear indication of a very competitive but from the regulatory point of view also difficult market. Nevertheless, our ICT companies work together with their Korean counterparts both in issues related to regulatory questions but also supplying each other with components. Samsung being one of the leading producers of microchips is one of the main suppliers also for Nokia. Finnish and Korean science and technology institutions have institutionalised cooperation relations. The Finnish Academy of Science has cooperated with KAST and KAIST on various areas of technology.
TIEKE (Finnish Information Society Development Centre) has cooperated with KIEC already for some years arranging seminars and symposia together. Finland and the ROK have also co-sponsored a series of seminars on e-commerce in the framework of ASEM.
The Republic of Korea is one of the leading economies in the ICT sector with many cutting edge solutions. In addition the Korean market provides an interesting test bed for new applications. The market is open for new solutions and the cost per contact is low due to the very high population density. The authorities are also very supportive for the introduction of new technologies and services. A good example of this is the government's 839-program that has brought WiBro and DMB on the market.
The broad strategies of Finland's ICT policy are formulated by the Science and Technology Policy Council. It is chaired by the Prime Minister and advises the government and ministries in questions relating to science and technology. Currently seven other ministers and ten other members well versed in science and technology participate in the work. The Council is responsible for the strategic development and coordination of Finnish science and technology policy.
Some main features of the Finnish IT policy are the emphasis on the availability and development of broadband networks and services. The national broadband strategy includes all in all 59 different measures. The objectives are to increase the speed and mobility of the services under the concept 'broadband in your pocket'.
During 2005 Finland had the strongest growth in broadband users in the EU and Finland is now third after Denmark and the Netherlands as to broadband connections per 100 inhabitants. The prices of broadband connections have also stabilised on a European average. The objective to spread the coverage also to less densely populated areas is encouraging as the extension of wireless WiMAX-networks is speeding up.
The increasing speed has also resulted in new and additional services gaining popularity. One example is the Triple play-service that includes voice (VoIP), picture (IPTV) in addition to normal broadband services.
Three service providers have already launched 3G services through their UMTS networks. To extend the coverage of 3G services over the whole country some assessments recommend allowing operators to use same frequencies and network structures as for the GSM900-network.
As stated earlier, Finland will discontinue analog TV-broadcasting as of August 31, 2007. Three operators have been granted a licence for digital terrestrial TVbroadcasting and a fourth licence for mobile TV-broadcasting with DVB-H technology. The mobile digital TV- broadcasting is expected to start during the current year.
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