Earlier this month, Italy’s communications minister vowed to bring broadband to all Italians, from the stiletto tip heel of Puglia to mountaintop villages in the Italian Alps. It was the kind of anachronistic proclamation that puzzled many of us in Rome. You mean that in 2007, despite all of the European Commission’s lofty promises, the “digital divide” still exists across much of Europe?

The answer is a sobering “yes”, underscored last week by Viviane Reding, the EU’s commissioner for information society and media, in the latest report on Europe’s broadband readiness. Sadly, the continent is making little progress towards reaching its goal of becoming the “most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” by, yikes, 2010.

Despite the laudable efforts of the Danes, the Dutch and the Finns, world-leaders in broadband roll-out, the EU as a whole is hardly a dynamic marketplace for broadband. At the end of last year, just 15.7 per cent of the EU’s population had a fast, always-on net connection. Finland, Sweden the Netherlands and Denmark each clock in with more than a quarter of the population broadband-enabled, with the UK just behind them. On the anaemic end of the scale, eight EU members, including the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Poland, have a penetration rate below 10 per cent and Ireland, one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies, comes in at just 10.3 per cent. Ms Reding also singles out Germany, Spain and Italy as under-performers.

Why is this so unnerving? The overall lack of broadband penetration across Europe means the continent is still woefully under-equipped in the basic telecommunications infrastructure necessary to be a global economic force. Without broadband, there’s no cheap voice-over-IP phone calls for the cash-conscious start-ups, no video-on-demand for the aspiring film directors and little ability for agitators to publish their grievances with the EU for all the world to read. It’s also more costly for governments to function. If citizens cannot easily get online to manage their affairs, from paying parking tickets to voting, it means taking more time off work, dealing with unmotivated bureaucrats. (Spend a half-hour in the bill payment queue of an Italian post office and you will see old-world inefficiency played out to its agonising worst.) And if municipalities cannot put projects out to bid for all vendors to see, then taxpayers get stuck with the difference.

The lack of investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) on the state level continues, Reding recently reported. An EU target for member nations to invest 3 per cent of GDP in ICT by 2010 is unlikely. This bodes poorly for Europe’s software, media and online industries too.

What’s the hold-up? Red tape, the EU says. Some of Europe’s biggest countries, primarily Germany and Italy, have been slow to open up the telecommunications market as instructed, preventing new firms from competing with the national incumbents. On the ground in Rome and Berlin, this means expensive broadband services that price too many consumers out of the market. It also stifles innovation.

But this is occurring only in half of Europe. Northern Europe is shaping up to be the dynamic ICT market the EU envisaged during the dot-com boom days. Where I live, in Italy, and in many of the EU newcomers, we’re on the wrong side of the divide. Investment in ICT is at a bare minimum, and the future competitiveness here in the software, telecoms and online industries looks disturbing.

In 2007, a promise by the Italian government of “broadband for all” is a reassuring start to jumpstart the country’s fragile ICT sector. Let’s hope it’s not too late.

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Bernhard Warner, formerly Reuters' internet correspondent in Europe and senior editor for The Industry Standard Europe, writes about technology, the internet and media industries. He can be reached at techscribe@gmail.com