The Ecommerce Europe Board of Directors has recently met in Brussels to discuss the upcoming policy challenges and projects on the agenda of the European e-commerce association. The Directors of leading national e-commerce associations from all over Europe had the chance to discuss Ecommerce Europe’s plans for the coming year, in terms of strategy and projects.

Projects: Survey, Annual Conference, Trustmark

During the meeting, the Brussels team of Ecommerce Europe presented the upcoming projects on which Ecommerce Europe has already started working on. In Q1 2016, a new survey on barriers to cross-border e-commerce in Europe will be launched, in order to find out if there has been an evolution from the last year, with a more in-depth analysis of the TOP-3 barriers that were revealed by the 2015 survey.

The Brussels team also presented a first draft of the upcoming Ecommerce Europe Annual Conference in Barcelona, which will take place on 30 May 2016. The Annual Conference is the best opportunity for European policy makers and other stakeholders eager to learn more about how the e-commerce sector can continue its double-digit growth rate.

Directors were also involved in fruitful discussions on how to upgrade the Ecommerce Europe Trustmark scheme further, which has been recently rolled out in 11 countries to foster trust in cross-border e-commerce in Europe.

Netcomm President Roberto Liscia enters the Executive Committee

Ecommerce Europe is glad to announce that the Board of Directors decided to appoint Roberto Liscia as new member of the Executive Committee, on behalf of Southern Europe countries, specifically Italy, Spain and Portugal. The Executive Committee is in charge of the day-to-day affairs of Ecommerce Europe and it safeguards the overall functioning of the association. All Executive Committee members are also part of the Board of Directors.

Closing the day with a high-level speaker, Mr. Roberto Viola from DG Connect

The Board of Directors had the chance to meet with Mr. Roberto Viola, Director-General of the European Commission’s DG Connect, involved in the implementation of the Digital Single Market Strategy. Many issues related to the e-commerce sector were touched during the dinner, from geo-blocking to e-privacy. According to DG Connect’s Director-General, difficult and differing legal frameworks together with costly parcel delivery are two of the biggest barriers to cross-border online sales and this is also confirmed by the results of the Ecommerce Europe survey ‘Barriers to Growth’. “The Commission’s goal is to promote cross-border e-commerce, therefore DG Connect has a perfect match with the goal of Ecommerce Europe”, declared also Mr. Viola. Overall, both parties were very pleased of the fruitful exchanges of knowledge.

Ecommerce Europe has been closely in contact with DG Connect in the past years, also with the previous Director-General, and is now pleased to strengthen the relations with its new leader Mr. Roberto Viola. The European e-commerce association will be closely in contact with all the relevant policy makers, in order to ensure that the interests of the online merchants are always taken into account.