The European Commission wants a perfect digital market, but still there huge problems for small problems such as print a document inside the building
by Emanuele Bonini
Digital agenda, technology, e-commerce: these are all strategic goals for the European Union, but unfortunately huge projects have to deal with small problems which make EU ambitions just a dream. What about in Brussels in case of printing need? Start cross your fingers and pray. Only one institution can allow printing a document. Indeed, only in the European Parliament is easy to find a computer working with a printer able to put on paper digital sheets. On the contrary, both in the Commission and in the Council there's no hope. In the Berlaymont there some computers, but no one has a connection to any printer. Furthermore, in the press room the fixed computers put at disposal of journalists have no editing programs. In other words, the possibility of writing is not foreseen. Maybe in the European Commission there's no person who knows what journalism is and what journalist do (being cynical we could say they know really well what journalists do, and that's the reason why they are not put in condition to write), but this is just a part of the story. Printers and scanners are provided only to internal staff. Of course the Commission has the right to decide how to manage the building and all the activities take place in it, but considering every day delegation of different nature pay visit to the European Commission giving the possibility, to use a computer with a printer could be a nice policy in the 21st century.
In the European Council the situation is similar. Printers are only for internal staff. If you need to print anything you want you have to ask to the receptionists if they can print for you from their computer. In such a case you can say goodbye to your privacy, cause your documents will be processed by them. Why all that? The answer is simple: computers at disposal of visitors have not a PDF format reader (and it sound ironic, considering all the digital documents produced in the Council are in PDF form), so the machine cannot read the document. In case of a common document in Microsoft Word format, it has problem to read documents from external drivers, so put a USB device for opening and printing your stuff it will be not possible. And the only computer able to read your document is not connected to the printer machine. Welcome to the future, welcome to the European Union, where digital agenda works just in the virtual world but not in the real one. IN trying to print a document in the EU institution and experiencing all that, it's easy to recall UKIP leader Nigel Farage's thought: the European Union doesn't work.
Digital agenda, technology, e-commerce: these are all strategic goals for the European Union, but unfortunately huge projects have to deal with small problems which make EU ambitions just a dream. What about in Brussels in case of printing need? Start cross your fingers and pray. Only one institution can allow printing a document. Indeed, only in the European Parliament is easy to find a computer working with a printer able to put on paper digital sheets. On the contrary, both in the Commission and in the Council there's no hope. In the Berlaymont there some computers, but no one has a connection to any printer. Furthermore, in the press room the fixed computers put at disposal of journalists have no editing programs. In other words, the possibility of writing is not foreseen. Maybe in the European Commission there's no person who knows what journalism is and what journalist do (being cynical we could say they know really well what journalists do, and that's the reason why they are not put in condition to write), but this is just a part of the story. Printers and scanners are provided only to internal staff. Of course the Commission has the right to decide how to manage the building and all the activities take place in it, but considering every day delegation of different nature pay visit to the European Commission giving the possibility, to use a computer with a printer could be a nice policy in the 21st century.
In the European Council the situation is similar. Printers are only for internal staff. If you need to print anything you want you have to ask to the receptionists if they can print for you from their computer. In such a case you can say goodbye to your privacy, cause your documents will be processed by them. Why all that? The answer is simple: computers at disposal of visitors have not a PDF format reader (and it sound ironic, considering all the digital documents produced in the Council are in PDF form), so the machine cannot read the document. In case of a common document in Microsoft Word format, it has problem to read documents from external drivers, so put a USB device for opening and printing your stuff it will be not possible. And the only computer able to read your document is not connected to the printer machine. Welcome to the future, welcome to the European Union, where digital agenda works just in the virtual world but not in the real one. IN trying to print a document in the EU institution and experiencing all that, it's easy to recall UKIP leader Nigel Farage's thought: the European Union doesn't work.
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