Maurice Lévy, the CEO of the French advertising agency Publicis, Elisabeth Niggemann, the president of the German National Library, and Belgian journalist Jacques De Decker have been entrusted by the European Commission to come up with recommendations on ways to speed up the digitisation, online accessibility and preservation of cultural works across the Union. The aim of this ‘reflection group’ is to find solutions to copyright issues and thereby to help Europeana, the EU’s digital library, “reach a new dimension”. Europeana was launched in November 2008.

The idea to create this group originated with French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand, and has been backed by his EU colleagues. The private sector’s participation is important especially in light of the ongoing lively debate in France between supporters and opponents of Google.

This ‘reflection group’ “will examine the various ongoing initiatives involving both public and private partners (notably the Google Books project) and copyright issues to find ways to boost the digitisation efforts of the complete collections held by libraries, museums and archives in Europe,” said the Commission.

Currently, some seven million digitised works – books, maps, photographs, paintings, newspapers and musical pieces - are available at the Europeana portal ( www.europeana.eu), “but this is only a small part of all the works held by Europe’s cultural institutions,” adds the Commission. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes commented that “lack of money or rigid laws are no excuse”. The aim is to digitise ten million works by the end of this year.

The group will report to Commissioners Kroes and Androulla Vassiliou (education) and will submit its conclusions by the end of 2010.