The Commissioner for Digital Agenda (previously Commissioner for Information Society and Media) is a member of the European Commission responsible for media and information issues such as telecoms and IT. The current Commissioner is Neelie Kroes.
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Viviane Reding found a relatively popular policy in seeking to lower roaming charges of mobile phones when travelling within the European Union, stating: "For years, mobile roaming charges have remained unjustifiably high. We are therefore tackling one of the last borders within Europe's internal market".[1] Her legislation to cap roaming charges was approved by the Parliament in April 2007 [2]
On 7 April 2006 the Commission launched the new ".eu" TLD for websites for EU companies and citizens wishing to have a non-national European internet address. This has proved popular with 2.5M being registered by April 2007. It is now the seventh most popular TLD worldwide, and third in Europe (after .de and .uk) [3]
Reding has also proposed that major European telecom companies be forced to separate their network and service operations to promote competition in the market. The companies, including France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, would still own their networks but the separate management structure would be obliged to treat other operators on an equal basis in offering access to the network. This is opposed to separate ideas to force a full break up of such companies.[4]
In the previous Commission information society was linked with Enterprise (now linked with Industry).
| Name | Country | Period | Commission | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Karl-Heinz Narjes | Germany | 1985–1992 | Delors Commission I & II |
| 2 | Antonio Ruberti | Italy | 1992–1995 | Delors Commission III |
| 3 | Martin Bangemann | Germany | 1995–1999 | Santer Commission |
| 4 | Erkki Liikanen | Finland | 1999–2004 | Prodi Commission |
| 5 | Ján Figeľ | Slovakia | 2004 | Prodi Commission |
| 6 | Viviane Reding | Luxembourg | 2004–2010 | Barroso Commission I |
| 7 | Neelie Kroes | Netherlands | 2010 onwards | Barroso Commission II |