An outstanding Event !

EUROSMART members raised their glasses with Mrs Viviane Reding, Commissioner for information society to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Association together with 100 participants.

According to Mrs Viviane Reding, “the challenge facing an organisation like Eurosmart is not only to issue general recommendations from the industry to governments. Eurosmart does this well, Eurosmart could also use its influence and maturity to play an active role in prospecting future markets and in industrial research and development. Eurosmart is in an excellent position to make innovation happen…”

According to Eurosmart Chairman Olivier Piou (Axalto CEO), after 10 years of successful representation of the smart card industry, Eurosmart is now in front of new challenges and opportunities, the European agenda linked to smart card is impressive, however, in order to be successful, the European Commission and Member States need to push for eGovernment projects to strengthen and protect a genuine European industry as we are an important element of the Lisbon Agenda.

The industry CEOs, Alex Mandl (Gemplus), Franz Haniel (Giesecke & Devrient), Pierre Barberis (Oberthur Card Systems), questioned by the journalist Alex Taylor, reminded the participants that smart card is the key for the secure access to the Information and Digital Age and fits well with European values: privacy, freedom, mobility…

Alexander Everke (Infineon), Sour Chhor (Philips Semiconductors) and Reza Kazerounian (STMicroelectronics) insisted on the innovation and R&D developments during the past years and the necessity to be supported in the future.

Many interesting conversations continued during the evening between the smart card industry experts and representatives of the different Directorates-Generals of the Commission (Justice-Liberty-Security, Internal Market, Information Society, Transport, and Enterprise), representatives of the European Parliament, Member States Representations, the European Payment Council, GSM Association…

Thank you to all participants for this splendid evening

Read Mrs Viviane Reding speech View event presentation slides View more photos

New Smart Card industry figures for 2004 and 2005 forecast released in April

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