On 7 December the Representation of the European Commission in Luxembourg organised a Citizens' Dialogue: Our future for a digital Europe. The debate focused on digitalisation of public administrations and what the European Union is doing to help Member States provide more and better digital public services to citizens and businesses.

According to Gertrud Ingestad European administrations face three main challenges - the need to provide services that are (i) tailored to citizens' needs, (ii) interoperable and at the same time (iii) secure. This is the type of services that digital governments aim at in line with the EU e-government Action Plan and the Tallinn Ministerial Declaration. The European Commission is already providing practical support to Member States through interoperability programmes such as ISA² programme and Connecting Europe Facility as well as through its Open Source Software Strategy.

In this context, on 21 November 2018 the European Commission adopted the Digital Strategy to drive its own transformation to a user-centric, data-driven and secure administration. ''Modernising public administrations starts from inside out and we implement the same principles in-house'' further elaborated Gertrud Ingestad.

With the rise of new technologies based on artificial intelligence and data analytics, a new generation of public services will appear - digital by default, open, cross-border and interoperable. Jean-Paul Zens pointed out that offering intuitive services will be a huge challenge, but also a responsiblity of the government to integrate people in the process of adopting digital services and using them to their benefit. For this to happen, services need to be designed with accessibility and data protection in mind, added Gertrud Ingestad. Digitalisation has many advantages as it enables Member States to offer user-friendly and one-click services which meet the expectations of citizens and businesses.

The well-attended debate was the last Citizens' Dialogue organised by the Representation of the European Commission in Luxembourg for this year. Luxembourg ranks 5th on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) for 2018. The index reports on the latest progress within the European Union on key performance indicators such as connectivity, digital skills, digital public services, and more. Gertrud Ingestad highlighted the thriving digital ecosystemin Luxembourg as one that offers a fertile ground for digital innovation.  

Listen to the podcast

Check the best moments on Twitter