Scandinavian societies are amongst the leaders in information society applications – not only within Europe but worldwide.

This seminar is an opportunity to gain understanding, first of the role that public policy is playing in promoting information society applications in the Union and especially in these countries - and secondly, based on the site visits and exhibition, of the practical reality for business, for public administration and for citizens.

It is also an opportunity to improve understanding of the issues as they are seen in the neighbouring countries of central and eastern Europe – to understand better their realities and their ambitions, and to be better able to assess the practical scope for developing networking and co-operation.

Clearly, there is no interest or usefulness in organising yet another round of seminars exchanging generalities about the importance of information society applications.

That is why the Commission – and I know this is the hope of the organisers too – see this seminar as leading to operational results.  We want it to be the launching pad for real communication and dialogue between people directly involved in implementing projects.  We also hope that it can contribute to a better dialogue between them and those responsible for regional policy in particular.  To our mind, the genuine involvement of practitioners, and the stimulation of contact between them and those who have general responsibilities for public policy, is the key to getting useful results.

This seminar has been linked to the LOCREGIS project.  We have done that because, when it started two years ago, it had similar ambitions limited of course, at that time, to the three Member States of the European Union – Austria, Finland and Sweden – for which it was designed.

First of all, we wanted to know as systematically as possible what kinds of project already existed, and which regions and sectors were already active and which were not.  In other words, we wanted to know what the grassroots reality was, because the intention was to build on that reality, not on theoretical considerations.

Secondly, we wanted to encourage dialogue and networking between practitioners, and between them and those responsible for public policy, especially the management of the EU’s Structural Funds.  We wanted to put the enthusiasts in touch with each other.  We wanted those in charge of public policy to build their proposals on the reality and not the dream.

Equally important to our minds, was to put the enthusiasts in touch with the hesitant or indeed the absent – the white areas or sectors where little or no activity was observed at present.  In passing, let me say that subsequent experience has shown that it is not easy to involve those who do not wish to be for whatever reason!

Thirdly, we wanted to understand better the qualities that public financial support to project promoters should try to encourage – in other words, to define best practice criteria from the point of view of regional economic development.

Finally, we wanted to move towards the deliberate design of bigger and more ambitious actions that could really accelerate structural change.  And to do this of course, in a manner which reconciled local and regional diversities with national ambitions and priorities.

No doubt many of you have started a similar process or are thinking of doing so.  LOCREGIS is a valuable practical experience on a transnational scale – valuable and practical perhaps partly because the transnational scale was not too ambitious in the start-up phase.  It was already hard enough to co-ordinate three national co-ordinators!

But more than that – you are no doubt as interested as we are, now that LOCREGIS is nearing the end of the present work programme, to know what the results are from two years of work.  And what practical lessons can be drawn from those results for your own future efforts.

I know that in the coming days, one recurring theme is bound to be that the main obstacles to introducing information society applications are often cultural and societal in character – the technology available today has great potential, but if it is simply grafted on to established ways of living, working and of interrelating, much of that potential may be lost.

Once we go beyond the very limited field of strictly standard routines, the best results are obtained when ways of living and working, and of interrelating, are rethought, sometimes quite fundamentally.  They are rethought because it is felt to be necessary in its own right – to improve service, to increase productivity, to cut costs, to live better – for whatever reason.  Information society applications are then one of the tools that makes it possible to innovate – not an end in themselves.

It is perhaps no accident therefore that information society applications have been developing faster and wider in European societies where innovation and flexibility seem to be easier.  What, more precisely, are these societal characteristics that favour innovation and flexibility and hence the development of the information society, and can they be deliberately encouraged where they are presently absent or insufficient?  Can public policy be effective in supporting changes in attitudes and organisational arrangements that, in turn, call upon information society applications to be realised in practice?

This is difficult territory indeed for public policy!  It has to be said that the public sector is not normally in the forefront of innovation – but it can be as this seminar will, I know, be able to show with practical examples.