EU digital progress report card: Europe could do better

A new report says that the European Union's borderless single market is expanding only sluggishly into cyberspace, amid consumer concerns about security and whether it's possible to return unwanted purchases.

Monday's European Digital Progress Report says that while 53 percent of European citizens now shop online, only 16 percent buy goods or services from another country.

The report also shows smaller companies lagging behind their larger competitors. Only 7.5 percent of smaller companies in the 28-nation EU sell online to other countries, an increase of just 1 percentage point since 2013.

The European Commission's vice president for the digital single market, Andrus Ansip, says the EU's executive arm is developing proposals to eradicate "barriers that discourage companies from cross-border trading and prevent people from getting the most competitive offers online."

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