eGovernment plan to transform public administration in the EU

(BRUSSELS) – With the wider public often losing out to the private sector on the digital innovation front, EU Member States have agreed new, open and inclusive standards for eGovernment throughout the EU.

A new Action Plan for eGovernment for the 2016–2020 period sets ambitious targets on cross-border eServices, particularly on enabling remote access from the comfort of home to services provided by foreign public organisations. Access to these services, including government administration, libraries, museums or archives, has been until relatively recently almost inaccessible.

For the EU presidency, Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini welcomed the agreement, which, he said, “sets a high standard for all EU public administrations and the Slovak Presidency considers this to be an important step forward,” he said.

The 2016–2020 Action Plan aims to transform public administration in the EU into an open, effective and inclusive system which will provide user-friendly, personalised and cross-border electronic public services to all EU citizens and businesses.

The design and delivery of better services is to be based on innovative approaches and modern digital technologies, in line with the needs and requirements of citizens and entrepreneurs.

Public administrations are expected to use the opportunities offered by the new digital environment to simplify the lives of citizens and businesses and make their experience more pleasant. The principles applied in this modernisation include:

• cross-border digital services by default, i. e. citizens and businesses will be able to interact with the administration online without the need for personal visits, even if, for example, they live and work in a different EU country;
• once-only principle at European level, which means that citizens and businesses will not have to notify one and the same fact to any authority in the EU twice;
• trustworthiness and security in the first place, thanks to which citizens and businesses need not fear the loss of their privacy or misuse of their identity.

The eGovernment Action Plan 2016–2020 enables complementarity of new tasks following the agreement of Member States or on the basis of good ideas proposed by citizens and businesses through the egovernment4eu participation platform. Another new element is the emergence of the European eGovernment Action Plan Steering Committee, which will play a central role in the development of modern public administrations responsive to the challenges of the 21st century. The Committee will meet for the first time in Bratislava during the Digital Assembly Conference to be held on 28 and 29 September 2016.

Draft Council Conclusions on the eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020