EC publishes five e-service building blocks
Five IT components for building e-government services involving ID, signatures, invoices, data exchange and machine translation are now available. The building blocks were developed and piloted by Member States in several large scale pilots.
The five highly reusable tools and services are intended to enable cross-border communication. The components can be implemented or used as a service in any IT solution.
The five building blocks are published by the European Commission's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). The development was jointly financed by two EC programmes, the ICT Policy Support Programme (CIP) and the Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (ISA) programmes.
Don't reinvent the wheel
The goal of the building blocks is to offer services which can be re-used in several sectors and in other more complex IT services. The reuse of building blocks will enable the provision of new digital public services to citizens, businesses and public administrations in a more cost-effective way. It facilitates cross-border transactions and allows interconnection of national networks. The ambition is to gradually build a European interoperability ecosystem in pursuit of the Digital Single Market.
EU: Digital Connecting Europe Facility approved by European Parliament
Collaboration, participation and transparency - core principles of Open Government -, will be among the priorities in the eGovernment Action Plan 2016 - 2020 of the European Commission.
During a workshop on July 1, Jean-Francois Junger, Deputy Head of Unit, DG CNECT, Public Services Unit, said that the next action plan intends to go further than the previous plan and will be more dynamic and flexible.
The next eGovernment Action Plan is a key part of the Digital Single Market Strategy of the EU. It will be a mobiliser for actions paving the way towards the modernisation of public administrations and services in Europe. Moreover, it will promote user-friendly digital services, help connect public administrations across Europe and facilitate the re-use of open data, open services and open processes. These Open Government principles should operate in an Open Governance framework in which citizens, businesses, civil society, social partners and other stakeholders play a key role. “Citizen involvement in the production of collaborative services” is a priority area, Mr. Junger said in his presentation. He also considered Open Data, “as an untapped resource with a huge potential for building stronger, more interconnected societies”.
ICT to support the modernisation of public services
However, for it is to succeed, the Open Government scheme needs to be supported by a strong ICT backbone, interoperability and a transformation towards re-usable, modular public services.
During the workshop, the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) programme showed how the European Commission wanted to create an “interconnected Europe”, by promoting broadband connectivity for all European households, and by facilitating the interoperability of European public administrations. CEF provides Digital Services Infrastructures (DSIs), which are generic Building Blocks that can be re-used (eInvoicing, eSignature, etc.) or interoperable online services for citizens, businesses and public administrations (sector-specific DSIs – eProcurement, better Internet for children, etc…). The idea is to build “a global ecosystem”, Serge Novaretti, from DG CONNECT, Public Services said.
The ISA 2 programme was also presented during the workshop. This programme, which will run from 2016 to 2020, will facilitate the interaction of services in European public administration.
The European Commission proposes over €9 billion for broadband and digital infrastructure services
The European Commission has proposed to spend almost €9.2 billion from 2014 to 2020 on pan-European projects to give EU citizens and businesses access to high-speed broadband networks and the services that run on them.
The European Commission has proposed to spend almost €9.2 billion from 2014 to 2020 on pan-European projects to give EU citizens and businesses access to high-speed broadband networks and the services that run on them.
The 9.2 billion funding is part of the proposed €50 billion plan "Connecting Europe Facility". This would be a completely new digital infrastructure investment programme helping to make everyone a citizen of Digital Europe, to boost the innovation economy and to invest in jobs for the future.
Europe is facing problems in deploying broadband which is a barrier to growth. €7 billion of the proposed €9.2 billion euro would first be invested in high-speed broadband infrastructure. The Commission estimates that this sum could leverage between €50 and 100 billion of public and private investments, i.e. a substantial proportion of the estimated €270 billion of broadband investments needed to meet the Digital Agenda targets.
The remaining €2 billion funding would be invested in the joined-up infrastructure needed for pan-European digital public services. The digital service infrastructure projects would be selected for CEF grants by the Commission from proposals received in areas as setting up a business, authenticating identity and delivering government or health services. Projects will be evaluated on their ability to contribute to a digital single market.
The investments would be used to promote pan-European interoperability and to meet the costs of linking existing national infrastructures and of running dedicated European-level infrastructures. Ensuring interoperability between systems and avoiding fragmentation corresponds to the needs of an increasingly mobile population.
The Commission's proposals will now be submitted to the European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers for adoption.
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Please find more information by consulting the official article.