From the documentation surrounding the Commission’s annual i2010 report, you could be forgiven for thinking that Europe’s battle for digitally-led economic competitiveness is well on the way to being won.

Unsurprisingly, closer examination suggests a rather more mixed reality. The IT sector is indeed growing faster than Europe’s overall economy. But at 2.9 per cent in 2006, the rate is still slower by more than two-thirds than the 4.2 per cent of 2005.

It is also true that software and services is the most dynamic sub-sector, with a 5.9 per cent expansion rate predicted for this year – up from 5.7 per cent in 2005 to 2006.

But with only three of the top 20 suppliers, Europe will most likely always play second, if not third, fiddle to the US.

And in Europe’s proportionately much larger

electronic communications sector growth is falling fast – it is predicted to be a miserable 1.4 per cent this year, down from 2.3 per cent in 2006 and down 3.5 per cent on the year before.

Even the research and development aims are starting to look over-ambitious. The massive E9bn-worth of Commission funding announced just before Christmas will still only get the investment rate to 2.6 per cent of gross domestic product by 2010, not the three per cent target.

In the context of Europe’s rather patchy progress towards its i2010 aims, last week’s apparently unrelated developments to cut international roaming charges take on considerable significance.

For Europe to meet its goal to lead the world’s knowledge economies, it must focus on what those economies are likely to look like.

We are unlikely ever to outcompete the US for software supply, and it is too late even to try.

But in the nascent market for multimedia content there is still everything to play for.

The sooner the conditions for developing lucrative next-generation content are created, the sooner Europe will be in a position to ensure its economic future.