A forerunner of this report was the document entitled, the ‘White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, and Employment. It is in this paper, submitted in Brussels in December 1993, that the term ‘Information Society appears for the first time, to be specific, in chapter 5, which is entitled ‘The Changing Society, the New Technology.

Later, at a meeting held in Naples in June 1994, the group of the seven most industrialised countries (G7) stressed the necessity of promoting the development of the technologies of the Information Society. Following this, the European Commission decided that the ministers of the G7 countries should join the conference on the introduction of the Information Society held in Brussels on 25^th -26^th February 1995.

Birth of the Internet:
The Internet was used for the first time in 1991, but people did not begin to talk about navigating on the Internet until the following year, when the Internet network began to be used world-wide. At this point, the phenomenon of the world-wide communication networks began to spread, with the most basic services such as Gopher, Ftp, Archie, etc. Soon after this, the use of multimedia systems became established, which made it easier to consult web sites. This situation led to a notable increase in the speed of modems and the creation and extension of large networks.

The objectives outlined are the following:

To achieve a more competitive European market

To establish the guidelines for growth

To reduce unemployment

To improve people’s quality of life

The fight against unemployment is the most urgent objective: new jobs must be created in the Information Technology sector, and greater knowledge must be gained of this field through contacts with the companies in the sector.