The first phase of a €600 million public-private partnership on the Internet of the Future (FI-PPP) was launched today by European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes. The project aims to stimulate internet innovation, and reposes on the argument that “if we don’t invest and innovate first, our global competitors will”. Surprising point of view, giving the huge wave of innovations in the Internet area and the fact that they occurred without the help of any government.
But even more surprising is the fact that while giving money to research in IT with one hand, the EU is taking that money from those that are actually innovating the most with the other hand, under the pretext of infringement of competition law rules. The former European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes knows only too well that –during her term of office two of the giants of the IT industry, Microsoft and Apple, have been successively in the sights of the Competition department, suspected of illegal market practices.
