Competition will strengthen Europe’s digital economy

Competition is key to nurturing Europe's digital economy, according to Joaquín Almunia, the European Commission's Competition Commissioner, who spoke at a UCL event yesterday. 'We cannot afford to miss the boat on so many parts of the digital value chain,' Mr Almunia said, during his keynote address at the annual colloquium of the UCL Jevons Institute for Competition Law and Economics. 'Competitive environments provide value and quality and, most importantly, they provide larger markets than those characterised by protection. They also encourage innovation that users actually will want to pay for, which is precisely what we need. ?Economic growth is our priority today; more than a priority, it is an imperative. We must therefore create the conditions for new economic activity to flourish. Sound and careful regulatory policy must support and complement competition policy in creating the appropriate environment for the digital economy.' - Click the player below to view Mr Almunia's speech in full. Mr Almunia elaborated on how his organisation aims to ensure that Europe rides the wave of the digital economy, warning that regulation in the wings that will govern broadband suppliers 'will not be a regulatory holiday for the big telecom operators'. He also decried the market for online content across Europe as a 'shameful anachronism', and described the distribution of content online across the entire European Union as 'expensive and difficult'. To combat this situation, he outlined European Commission proposals to: - improve the transparency and governance of collecting societies ?