Vision i2020 - Lobbying Strategies for ICT Policy in the next decade
During the final session of the seminar Andreas Tegge, Vice President Governement Relations and Chairman of the EICTA Digital Economy Policy Group, gave a presentation on how ICT Trade Associations could cooperate with Governments to develop a comprehensive ICT policy.
To this end Andreas presented three case studies:
The EICTA Vision 2020 Project
This project is designed to convince top-level politicians in the EU Institutions to put ICT high on their political agenda since ICT is a key enabler for achieving all their future policy challenges (competiveness, climate change, demograhics, internal market, etc.). As part of the project, EICTA will launch an economic study to collect compelling fact and figures and will organize in 2009 the first European ICT Summit. At the summit CEOs from EICTA Member companies will meet with the political leadership of the European Institutions and hopefully agree on a common ICT policy agenda for Europe.
The ICT Task Force
This Group was launched in 2006 by EU Commissioner Verheugen and was compsed of 15 executives from ICT companies, trade associations, academia and NGOs. The efforts resulted in a report that contained a comprehensive analysis of trends in the ICT industry and recommendations on how Europe could exploit the benefits from ICT. Despite all the efforts, the ICT Task Force did not have the expected impact, which can mainly be attributed to: lack of leadership, no involvement of CEOs, little contribution from experts and disagreement among industry representatives on key issues.
The German IT Summit
This initiative in Germany can be regarded as a best practice in this area. The summit takes place once a year, whereas Chancelor Merkel, Ministers as well as CEOs of ICT companies agree on concrete measures and projects to advance ICT in Germany. The summit is being prepared by seven high-level working groups that are chaired by either CEOs or Ministers. The three summits have resulted into some lighthouse projects and major enhancements for the ICT industry. The success of the ICT Summit is mainly due to: committment and personal engagement of top-level politicians and CEOs, accordingly sufficient financing and expert contribution, clear leadership and follow-up of measures that have been taken. The seminar concluded with a roundtable discussion, whereas best practises were exchanged based on the three case studies. Each participant presented experiences and plans on how the respective trade association engages with the national government to advance ICT policies.