[FYI] British MEP Alan Donnelly (PES) worries about Y2K

["Axel H. Horns" <axel.horns@fitug.de>]

CORDIS RTD-NEWS/c European Communities, 1998 

 Record Control Number : 12289 
                             Date : 1999-02-24 


Category : Miscellaneous

General Information : 

The Year 2000 Computer Problem - "The Millennium Bug" - represents a
critical issue, a considerable risk for consumers and a major
challenge for public services, but British MEP Alan Donnelly (PES)
will tell the European Parliament on 24 February 1999 that the
European Union can help by promoting coordinated actions by national
authorities, especially where there is a cross-border and internal
market impact. 

The Millennium Bug may adversely affect the individual citizen and the
Single Market. The problem has been caused in systems that use only
two digits to represent the year in date fields. As a result, in many
applications, the year 2000 will be interpreted as the year 1900,
causing failures in arithmetic computations and data processing. 

In a move to alert the business community and citizens of potential
dangers ahead, the European Commission has published a Communication
outlining the problem. Representing the Economic Committee, Alan
Donnelly will express his concern on the issue. Mr Donnelly notes the
world-wide cost of software adoption to which potential litigation
costs can be added. 

He is particularly concerned about the lack of concern from the
national authorities in areas such as energy, telecommunications and
transport. Additionally, he feels there is a need to raise awareness
amongst Europe's citizens. On the external front, there is a need to
take into account Eastern Europe and, in particular, the nuclear
sector. 

>From a legal point of view, Mr Donnelly's draft resolution requests
the Commission to clarify the position regarding existing EU Product
Liability Directives with regard to possible claims for compensation
in the event of failures caused by the Millennium Bug. 

Data Source Provider : European Parliament

Document Reference : Based on a press briefing from the European
Parliament's press service

Subject Index Codes : Telecommunications; Innovation, Technology
Transfer; Information, Media