back to article New EU digi-commish struggles with concepts of net neutrality

The incoming EU Commissioner for all things digital, Günther Oettinger, was quizzed by the European Parliament on Monday night. Truthfully, most of the questions lacked teeth. While the answers to his written questions were bland and lacking in any real content, Oettinger seemed to have decided that saying “infrastructure” …

  1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    There is no hope!

    The man hasn't got a clue.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There is no hope!

      Is there anyone in the top three sections of the EU that has?

  2. Eguro

    Sooo there should only be exceptions regarding culture?

    Should we feign surprise when culture turns out to be big music and film business?

    1. Ole Juul

      We do have a culture of favouring big business. /sigh

  3. Slx

    Bring back Steelie Neelie !!! She was genuinely good at her job - a highly unusual trait in a politician!

  4. Mark 85

    I'm thinking that the new unknown evil is worse than the previous holder of the postion.. characterized as a known evil? The guy's got the buzzwords but from what I'm hearing, he hasn't a clue what they mean.

  5. IHateWearingATie

    pointless

    These hearings are unfortunately pointless as the parliament only have the power to reject the whole set, not individual commissioners. However bad he is, it won't be enough to move the parliament to reject the commissioners.

  6. Alpha Tony

    We need to incentivize the stakeholders to leverage the cloud and accelerate the onboarding of new paradigms.

    1. Gannon (J.) Dick

      A Candle in the Darkness

      Here's your upvote

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. rmartens

    Oettinger knows the interwebs as well as energy.

    He used to be the EU commissioner for energy. In Germany he is famous for this funny speech in Germinglish.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrEQ8Ovw-Q

  9. HKmk23

    So I.T. or digital commissioner is not considered important.........typical!

    In a leaked diplomatic cable from the United States embassy cable entitled "Lame Duck German Governor Kicked Upstairs as New Energy Commissioner in Brussels," Deputy Chief of Mission in Germany, Greg Delawie notes that

    "Chancellor Angela Merkel nominated Baden-Wuerttemberg (BW) Minister President Guenther Oettinger as EU Energy Commissioner primarily to remove an unloved lame duck from an important CDU bastion.

    1. Dazed and Confused

      Re: Typical!

      That is how the EU commissioners are chosen. Don't all EU governments nominate commissioners like this? Look at some of the dolts we've packed off to Brussels.

  10. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Meh

    With this man in charge, anything could happen

    In 2020... Nobody is disadvantaged but if you want to download at more than 1Mb/s, you will have to have to pay more so that culture is not disadvantaged too. A part goes to the ISP, a part goes to a pool for approved EU 'culture providers', and finally the rest is tax.

    I'm just throwing that out there.

  11. Christian Berger

    Competence is not the point here

    The EU is, at least by Germany, largely seen as a way to protect German interests from the rest of the EU, and to prevent a strong opponent to the US which might "damage the good relationships".

    People who are competent make that harder, what you need is marionettes wearing suits. If Oettinger would understand what he's supposed to do he would realize that strengthening copyright, for example, is not a good idea. He would probably come to the conclusion that to re-establish the balance between rights owners, creators, and the public there must be a ban on digital restriction systems. He would understand that regional national broadcasts licenses are not in the spirit of a united Europe, but counteract it.

    In short he'd understand that he'll probably hurt both Europe and its people. Someone with even a scrap of brain left could simply do the right thing. This is a risk Merkel and Co cannot take, so here we have Oettinger.

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