Connecting the 30% of the EU's rural population that has no high speed internet access is a priority for achieving 'broadband for all' by 2010. Improved internet connectivity is a powerful tool to stimulate swift economic recovery.

The Commission has outlined how it would use its own support programmes to boost internet networks and services in rural areas, and called on EU Member States to do the same. Good internet access can make farms and companies in rural areas, especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), less isolated and more competitive through access to international markets and faster and more efficient ways of doing business. The European Parliament and the Council are discussing a Commission proposal to make a further € 1 billion available through the European Economic Recovery Plan to spread high speed internet access more widely across all regions of Europe.

While an average 93% of Europeans can enjoy access to a high speed online connection, the figure is only 70% in rural areas, and in some countries (such as Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania) high speed broadband internet networks cover just 50% or less of the rural population.

The Commission, in a Communication adopted on the 3rd march, outlines the benefits which better access of rural areas to modern Information and Communication Technologies like the internet can bring to businesses and individuals in rural areas, like farms and food producers.

One clear example is that 80% of Swedish farms already have access to the internet, and a third of them use the internet daily (a third also use the internet to submit applications for EU support). However, in other regions such as Tuscany (Italy) and Hungary, only a quarter of farmers use the internet, making it harder to plan production, market products and access prices in international markets, check weather forecasts or establish cooperation agreements with other market players. Farmers are not the only ones missing out: across Europe, only 22.5% of people in rural areas use e-government services like lodging tax returns, compared to 32.9% in urban areas.

The Commission therefore calls on Member States, regions (including local authorities) to consider adapting their rural development programmes to place adequate emphasis on information and communication technologies and on internet connectivity, especially within the mid-term review of their rural development plans due in 2010.