Last week at the ERCW we had the opportunity to hear about possible solutions to eGovernment obstacles in border regions.  The workshop was chaired and  moderated by Prof Wimmer form the Institute for Information Systems (IS) research at University of Koblenz-Landau. The main  speakers: Maria Wimmer, Rudie Boonen, Iliana Draganova, Pablo Rivera presented their projects as an example of reducing the obstacles and administrative burdens in European cross-border regions.

These projects can be considered as good practices to facilitate digital cooperation between border regions to help their citizens and businesses access services on both sides of the border. The examples were focussed on agriculture; BE/NL cooperation in registration of animals, in e-health area; Germany / Austria cooperation in children registration, shared public e-services using eurocitizen card in the Spanish Portuguese border and shared information network for public authorities and NGOs to ease cooperation in the cross-border region Bulgaria-Romania.

The presented projects confirmed that the digital transformation of government  and society can make the lives of individuals and businesses in border regions easier because their interaction with the administration across the border can be eased significantly. The cross-border data exchanges reduces administrative burdens and create better cross-border solutions and synergies.

All presented projects concluded that mainly political will, common understanding and trust on both sides of borders are crucial for the mutual development of cross border regions.