Citizens using e-government [What Europe does for you]

With European elections coming up in May 2019, you probably want to know how the European Union impacts your daily life, before you think about voting. In the latest in a series of posts on what Europe does for you, your family, your business and your wellbeing, we look at what Europe does for citizens using e-government.

Twitter Hashtag #EUandME

We live in a time of electronic communication, and enjoy easy and immediate access to friends and information. The internet and social media seem to reign as kings.  We also want this ease and freedom to extent to other parts of our life, such as our interaction with administrations. The European Union is actively helping with that. Since 2006, as part of EU policies, countries benchmark each other and exchange good practices. The most advanced country so far is Estonia, and others are advancing though still big differences exist.

The aim is to fully modernise the public administrations with the digital access for citizens being at the centre of the process. The EU wants to go all digital, thus facilitating the contact between the citizens and public administration as much as possible. The EU intends to help modernise the national public administrations, and will also give the good example by making its own European administrations, such as the European Commission, much more user-friendly and digitally accessible.

Once the administrations are modernised we will enjoy a totally new user experience. For example, supporting documents will only have to be submitted to the public administrations once. Tax declarations can already be done online. The same would apply when we are dealing with administrations in other EU countries. The exchange of information between national administration and across borders will be done with a high level of data security. Legislation has been put forward that make these services also available for people with disabilities.

Further information

• Communication of the Commission on an eGovernment Action Plan, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52016DC0179
• European eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020, https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/european-egovernment-action-plan-2016-2020