SDG Regulation and the Once-Only Technical System as key-players in the EU digital policy landscape
30 July 2024 | 6 minutes read
On 2 July 2024, the Commission published the second State of the Digital Decade report, which examines policy developments and assesses the EU’s progress towards achieving its Digital Decade targets and objectives.
The EU is pursuing a human-centric, sustainable vision of a digital society to empower citizens and businesses. To achieve this vision, the EU has made the 2020 – 2030 period Europe’s Digital Decade and defined targets and objectives for Europe’s digital transformation in its Digital Decade policy programme. The Commission and the Member States are taking action to achieve these goals by 2030. The actions that Member States plan to take are outlined in national roadmaps.
Since 2023, the Commission publishes annual reports on the State of the Digital Decade, in which it assesses the progress made towards the agreed targets and objectives. The 2024 report is accompanied by country fact pages. The Commission analyses the national roadmap of each Member State, which outlines the planned national measures, actions and funding to contribute to the EU’s digital transformation. Based on this assessment, the Commission publishes country fact pages that include national KPIs and country-specific recommendations to address the identified gaps and accelerate progress.
One of the Digital Decade’s targets is making 100% of key public services for citizens and businesses accessible for everyone online by 2030, and offering inclusive, efficient, interoperable, and personalised services and tools without discrimination. This report identifies the Single Digital Gateway (SDG) Regulation and the Once-Only Technical System as key players in reaching this target. It highlights that “On the legislative side, the implementation of the Single Digital Gateway Regulation has contributed to reduce the administrative burden for the EU citizens and businesses with the single digital gateway user interface, the Your Europe portal giving access to a wide range of online information and public services. […]. Both the single digital gateway and the OOTS make it easier for citizens to study, move, work, retire and for companies, notably SMEs, to do business across the EU.”
The Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the report highlights that the Single Digital Gateway has contributed to a large increase in the number of new cross-border digital public services through the Your Europe web portal and the Once-Only Technical System. It concludes that “Member States must ensure that all public services that have to be digitised under the Single Digital Gateway are effectively accessible online and that public authorities are connected to the Once-Only Technical System, so people and businesses can fully benefit from the automated exchange of official documents across borders.”
Thereby, the Single Digital Gateway and the Once-Only Technical System form a key part of the EU digital policy landscape, together with initiatives such as the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Regulation and the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EDIW). Synergies between the Once-Only Technical System and the EU Digital Identity Wallet are already being explored through a dedicated Contact Group. On 4 March 2024, the Contact Group summarised their findings in the report “Synergies between the Once-Only Technical System and the EUDI Wallet”.
Despite positive developments on the legislative side, the report also shows that achieving the target of providing 100% of key public services for citizens and businesses online by 2030 remains challenging. In 2023, the average EU score was 79 out of 100 as regards availability of digital public services for citizens and 85 out of 100 as regards businesses. Although both values increased compared to the previous year, they remain below the 2023 value required to be on track towards the 2030 target. In addition, both values are lower when looking at cross-border availability of public services, reaching a score of around 70 points for citizens and businesses, respectively.
You can find out more about Europe’s Digital Decade here and download the 2024 State of the Digital Decade package here.
You can learn more about the Once-Only Technical System here.