Bringing public services online is one of the cornerstones of the EU’s push to promote the digital economy. The extension of e-government and other public services is seen as a vital catalyst for online development, with electronic ID cards, e-signatures, or online access to medical records. 

Slowly but surely, e-government is becoming a reality. Take the practice of filing tax returns as an example of how authorities have enabled people to complete administrative tasks online. The opportunity to complete company registration and tax returns online has advanced significantly over the past few years. Between 2000 and 2009, availability of these basic online services increased from 21% to 71%.

But the picture is not entirely positive. The provision of e-government services varies across member states, and public take-up remains generally low. In 2009, little more than a third of people in the EU used the internet to access a government service of any kind.

The EU is determined to bring about improvements. The European Commission sees e-government as offering scope for helping public authorities control their costs. It also sees the benefits for the single market, as internal barriers are removed through harmonisation of online services.

Action plan

This determination was most evident in 2009, when member states signed up to the Malmo Declaration, committing themselves to reaching e-government targets by 2015. As a follow-up, Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for the digital agenda, launched Europe’s 2011-15 e-government action plan last December. This aims at seeing 50% of citizens and 80% of businesses using e-government by 2015. Other aspects include common EU-wide services such as e-signatures and e-identification (online personal identification through stored electronic data, obviating the need for physical signatures), and promoting the use of the internet in realms as diverse as healthcare, law and public procurement.

The digital agenda launched in May 2010 proposes that by 2012 the European Parliament and member states should come to an agreement on mutual recognition of e-identification and e-authentication across the EU.

Kroes recognises the dream of public authorities across the EU to enable citizens to access all their services online. But she does not disguise her belief that it is still a long way off – and that such services are far from harmonised across member states. She described as “absurd” the situation in which someone wanting to study, receive healthcare services, retire or even just live in a country other than their own will often find “digital systems more difficult to negotiate than paper ones”.

It is not just the Commission that is keen to develop e-government. Telecommunications and internet companies stand to benefit from the increased use of technology and want member states to move more services online.

Many challenges remain. One area that has come to the forefront is e-health. Industry representatives claim that technology already exists for the introduction of a fully-fledged EU-wide e-health provision, but its introduction is impeded by insufficient interoperability between existing systems and the lack of standards for exchanging data.

Challenges like these must be resolved before public services can move more fully online. And that needs authorities to be sufficiently motivated to change. As Kroes herself said at the signing of the Malmo declaration: “The technology and the citizen enthusiasm are the easy bit. The real challenge is in changing the mindset of public officials to catch and ride this digital wave.”

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