Tony Blair plans to hammer home a message that the 15 EU governments need to take urgent action
Found on www.year2000.com
- more on UK, Sweden, Netherlands: leading countries on Y2K
- Tony Blair will urge EC countries forward as chair of EC coming 6 months.
John
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Britain prods EU on Y2K
By Reuters
January 8, 1998, 2:50 p.m. PT
BRUSSELS--The European Union will hear a lot about the "new millennium" during Britain's six-month reign as president--but it won't be visionary talk about the glories of the new century.
The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to hammer home a message that the 15 EU governments need to take urgent action to prevent computers from wreaking havoc by failing to recognize references to the year 2000.
Following in the footsteps of the previous government, which first alerted the EU to the problem in 1996, Blair has asked his representatives to Brussels to raise the "millennium bug" threat at all relevant ministerial meetings, a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) spokesman said.
Blair is implementing the wishes of EU leaders, who at their Luxembourg summit in December asked Britain to give the issue top priority when it took over the presidency on January 1.
He also plans to raise the potential computer bomb--which could cost European organizations more than $160 billion to correct--at a meeting of the group of seven industrialized nations and Russia in Birmingham, England, in May, the spokesman said.
The move to the 21st century poses a problem for computers because many software programs use only two digits to show dates--and "00" could be read as 1900 rather than 2000.
While the issue is now receiving worldwide attention, Britain identified it early and has taken it more seriously than most other EU countries.
It created a government-funded, industry-led task force in 1996 to raise awareness and last autumn announced a follow-up project, Action 2000, to give advice and guidance to companies and organizations.
Britain worries that its efforts could come to naught if its EU partners do not take similar action. "The millennium bug doesn't recognize national borders," the DTI spokesman told Reuters.
"European countries do most of their trade with each other," he said. "A lot of that is done electronically. If the system fails, if trade fails, we're all going to be the worse for it."
In a note presented to EU telecommunications ministers in December, British Junior Trade Minister Barbara Roche urged EU countries to conduct an analysis of their state of preparation.
It said the European Commission, the EU executive, could help disseminate the information so that countries could share "best practice."
The Commission has so far taken a low-key approach to the millennium bug; for example, setting up a Year 2000 Web site and sponsoring workshops to consult industry and government officials.
It plans to issue a paper in the next few months, however, on ways the EU can address the problem, with one recommendation likely to be fostering cross-border "networking" between governments and industry associations, a Commission official said.
Experts predict the cost of adapting software to counter the millennium bug in Europe could exceed 150 billion ECUs ($162 billion), a Commission background document said.
In a review of EU responses, it said the Netherlands and Sweden had created industry-government bodies, while other governments had merely published guidelines.
The Commission official said some countries had stepped up activities since that report was issued in September. "They're certainly waking up," he said.
The message is sinking in only slowly in Europe, according to a survey of 1,050 companies last autumn cofunded by the Commission.
Ninety percent said they had a strategy to address Year 2000 problems, but less than 50 percent said they were working with their customers and suppliers and about 60 percent had no plans to buy new hardware or software tools.
"These findings cast substantial doubt on the quality of understanding of the problem and on the companies' strategies," said a summary of the survey. |
