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RIGA: The European Union must act fast to create a single digital market or risk losing out to the United States and China in the global arena, the bloc's internal market commissioner said Friday.

"We cannot live in a developing and digitalising world without having one single digital market in Europe," Elzbieta Bienkowska told EU competitiveness ministers gathered in the Latvian capital of Riga for informal talks.

"We do not have time any more to just discuss... now is a time to act," she said.

Bienkowska noted that while US companies have access to resources across the country, IT firms in the EU struggle with access to financing in what she called a "fragmented market".

She said the European Commission would meet on May 6 to finalise its strategy for a single digital market.

It will be part of the wider strategy to create a single European market across all industries, she added.

"The main document for the single market will be proposed by the Commission in November and this will be the Single Market Strategy."

Speaking on the sidelines of the Riga meeting, France's minister for digital affairs, Axelle Lemaire, stressed that the EU needed to work harder to help start-ups and improve access to credit.

"The French government would like the (Jean-Claude) Juncker (investment) plan to include investment tools... so that we can invest at the pan-European level," Lemaire said, referring to the European Commission chief's project aimed at reviving the continent's flagging economy.

"Comparatively, France is the country with the highest number of start-ups, but there is a problem with the sustainability of start-ups," Lemaire said, pointing to new firms having difficulties in accessing financing over one million euros ($1.1 million).

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Time to create European Union single digital market: Commissioner

EU keeps Hamas on terror list despite court ruling

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Hamas on Friday denounced a European Union decision to keep the Palestinian Islamist group and de facto Gaza Strip ruler on its terrorism blacklist, despite a court ordering its removal.

"This decision completely contradicts the court's ruling," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP.

"It is unjust and wrong to our people and legitimate resistance, and also encourages the occupation to continue its crimes," he said of Israel.

"We reject this decision and call for its review, and to remove all forms of injustice against our people and Hamas," Barhum said.

Brussels has lodged an appeal against a December ruling by the bloc's second highest court that Hamas should be removed from the list for the first time since 2001.

A spokeswoman for the European Council said on Friday Hamas would stay "on list" during the council's appeal process, which is expected to take around a year and a half.

Hamas's military wing was added to the EU's first-ever terrorism blacklist drawn up in December 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The EU then blacklisted the political wing of Hamas in 2003.

But the General Court of the European Union ruled last year that the Hamas blacklisting was based not on sound legal judgments but on conclusions derived from the media and the Internet.

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EU keeps Hamas on terror list despite court ruling

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Albania and The European Union - At the table with Klajda Gjosha - Video

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By: TV2Africa

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