Members of DIGITALEUROPE feel a special responsibility to respond to the President's initiative because the "turning point" he invokes when presenting his vision is nothing less than the dawn of a new era in human civilisation, the digital era. Digital technologies have rapidly become the central new drivers of productivity growth, innovation and the diffusion of knowledge throughout our economies and societies. In the digital era, the relentless development and application of ever more powerful digital technologies will accelerate the pace of economic and social transformation across Europe and around the world. There will be no opting out. Those who embrace digital technologies as the central transformational force of this new era will prosper. Those who do not will fade from relevance. Europe has fallen behind our own "Lisbon objectives" precisely because we have not yet given the digital revolution the central place it demands in our strategy. Provided we now do, there is no reason why Europe cannot, in the words of President Barroso, "exploit its full potential as the leading force for progress in a challenging world".