Blog

Today, I am taking over the chair of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities from my colleague, EU transport commissioner Violeta Bulc.

Yesterday, I attended the second 5G Global event in Rome, organised by the European Union's 5G Public Private Partnership. This was a great opportunity to engage once again with the international community to make 5G a global success. China, Japan, South Korea and the US were present.

Last week I visited again the United States of America [ from 7 to 11 October ]. I engaged with stakeholders in Seattle and New York City, after a brief visit to the nation's capital to touch base with World Bank senior officials to discuss the Bank's plans to increasingly use ICTs as an economic engine for developing countries, and with my colleagues at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

More than 750 participants gather for the 2016 Digital Assembly in the capital of Slovakia. The event is co-organised by the European Commission and the Slovak EU Presidency and brings together policy-makers, representatives of industry and academia, start-ups and NGOs.

The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ/EFJ) have, in general, welcomed the Commission's proposals for a new directive on authors' rights. We still need, however, to discuss the problem of the enormously unfair contracts that are so often imposed on journalists, as they are on other creators.