IT in the public sector of the European Union

General strategy

The Vice-President of the European Commission for Administrative Affairs is responsible for promoting electronic government at the level of the European Commission, initiating activity to develop an appropriate strategy. The Directorate for the Information Society and Media, as well as the directorates for informatics, are responsible for the implementation of this strategy within the framework of several established programs.

The two most famous initiatives of the European Commission in the field of e-government development are IDABC and its successor ISA. IDABC is managed and supervised by a team of national experts. The development of e-government at the level of the European Commission until 2010 is described in document i2010 Action Plan, which defines the key principles and directives of e-government. Among other projects sponsored by the European Commission are Access-eGov, EGovMoNet and SemanticGov.

The strategy and priorities for the development of e-government in the European Union for 2010-2015 are determined by the Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment of November 18, 2009. The next action plan for the development of e-government for the period from 2011 to 2020 was to be presented in June 2010^[1][2].

EU budget for eGovernment

In October 2011, European Commissioner for Digital Policy European Union Neelie Kroes announced that the union is ready to invest 50 billion euros in the development of digital, energy and transport infrastructure, which could create thousands of new jobs. In addition, according to Cruz, this money will help raise the credit rating of infrastructure projects.

At the same time, the European Commission plans to use the bonds of the European Investment Bank (EIB) to fill the gaps in the financing of the program by the most non-cash governments and stimulate private investment. At the moment, the market for venture investment in Europe has fallen to only 3 billion euros (data for 2010).

According to representatives of the European Commission, the construction of intelligent infrastructure for trans-European transport networks, the energy sector and information and communication technologies will require a total of 1.5-2 trillion euros. This equates to the estimated size of the Eurozone mutual assistance fund, which was discussed at the next meeting of G20 finance ministers.

Most of the announced amount of 50 billion euros, namely 32 billion euros, will be spent on transport projects. 9 billion euros each will be directed to energy projects, including the intellectualization of networks, as well as to the infrastructure of broadband access and the digitalization of public services.

So, the broadband services sector will receive 7 million euros between 2014 and 2020, Neely Cruz noted. At the same time, money will be offered not only to telecommunications operators, but also to utility companies, companies providing the population with electricity and water, cooperatives and construction firms, according to three selected areas of implementation of the plan.

For example, one of the important areas for the European Union is the creation of high-speed Internet access infrastructure in remote rural areas. To achieve the goal set by the European Union (30 Mbps by 2020 for each European and 100 Muit/s for each second), another 270 billion euros will be required. The process of developing broadband access services to the network only separately in Germany until 2020 will create 1 million jobs, and in France the ftth network attracts 360 thousand workers annually.

Participating countries eGovernment

As of 2009, the list of countries supporting the European Commission's e-government development directives included 34 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark Estonia, Finland France, Greece, Germany Hungary, Iceland,,, Ireland Italy Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania Slovenia, Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland, Great Britain

Full collection of reports on the implementation of eGovernment by EU countries

Read more: IT in the UK public sector

IDABC

IDABC stands for Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens. The programme was initiated in 2004 and involved the development of ICT to the level of transboundary use in Europe. The program also aims to develop electronic service delivery platforms in the region, develop interdepartmental interaction, as well as increase the attractiveness of the region as a place for work, life and recreation. The program was aimed at both private citizens of the European Union and business.

In 2008, the Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe (SEMIC.EU) was launched as part of IDABC to exchange knowledge in the field of e-government and interagency interaction. In the same year, the OSOR.eu website was launched in order to strengthen interaction between administrations in the field of using open source software.

The heir to IDABC was the Interchange of Data across Administrations (IDA) strategy. The new program was called Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (ISA), it was adopted in September 2009 and finally replaced IDABC from January 1, 2010.

eCall

Main article: eCall (emergency call)

In June 2013, a bill was submitted according to which, starting in October 2015, all new cars in the European Union will have to be equipped with a eCall system. It is an emergency telephone system that will automatically transmit a signal to rescue service 112 in the event of a traffic accident. In particular, it is planned to send rescuers such data as the time of the incident, the location of vehicles and the direction of their movement.

Automation of the cities

Experience of Berlin

In June 2013, it became known that the Berlin government abandoned plans to migrate urban IT infrastructure to open source software. However, the city parliament voted to adhere to open automation standards.

The proposal, which was voted against by the Berlin city parliament, suggested transferring 25% of the city's IT infrastructure to open source software by 2018. This is the second unsuccessful attempt by the city opposition to implement this initiative. If it were successful, the changes would affect 68 thousand computers involved in the city infrastructure, or rather, a quarter of them. For the first time, such a proposal was made in 2007.

Thomas Birk (right) from the Green Party could not push the Berlin Parliament to switch to ACT in state institutions

Thomas Birk, representative of the Green Party, the initiator of the changes, believes that the transition to open source in urban infrastructure is quite real. For example, switching 80% of its 15.5 thousand workstations to open source software, in particular, abandoning Windows in favor of Linux, LiMux and OpenOffice.org, the Munich government saved $14.6 million as of November 2012.

However, migration is not always positive, Birk admits. For example, Freiburg abandoned the OpenOffice in November 2012 and returned to office programs from Microsoft due to functional problems and unsuccessful migration. Although Birk insists that with proper preparation, everything could go smoothly, representatives of the socio-democratic party and the Christian democratic union of Germany opposed the innovation.

Instead, these parties adopted the "principle" of open standards, according to which all systems and platforms used by the city should be provided with unhindered data exchange. Also, the coalition of parties, according to the adopted document, intends to study how the use of cloud solutions really allows you to reduce the cost of licensing fees. The document says that Berlin faces the task of reducing the cost of IT systems, as well as solving the problem of "flap automation." At the same time, through standardization, the government intends to achieve not only the unification of equipment, but also the software used by all city organizations and services.

Digital transformation

In 2019, the European Union developed the Digital Europe program, which provides for financing digitalization activities in the amount of 9.2 billion euros. And in February 2020, the European Commission issued a document in which it outlined its vision for the digital future of Europe. It involves the development in the coming years of a number of regulations, strategies and other documents covering various aspects of the use of technology by the state, business and citizens. More details here.

2021: The EU will create a Digital Wallet service to access a number of private and public services

In early June 2021, the European Commission announced the creation of the Digital Wallet service in response to requests from EU member states to find a safe way for citizens to access public and private services on the Internet. More details here.

See also

Overview of IT in Russian regions 2015

• Russia in IT ratings
• Information society and co-financing of regions
• Electronic Government of Russia
• Informatization of regions (Russian market)
• Statistics of ICT use in the Russian public sector
• Electronic public services in the regions of Russia
• Interagency Electronic Interaction System (SMEV)
• Development of SMEV in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation
• Universal Electronic Card (UEC)
• UEC in the regions of Russia
• IT in Healthcare of the Russian Federation
• IT in education of the Russian Federation
• Concept of MFC
• Informatization MFC My documents
• Audit of MFC compliance with IT recommendations
• MFTS. International experience
• CIO of Russian regions
• Analysis of the base of IT directors of Russian regions 2014
• IT in the Public Sector (Global Market)
• IT in the US public sector
• IT in the UK public sector
• IT in India's public sector
• IT in Finland's public sector
• Digital Transformation of Europe

Notes