EU recommends re-focusing e-government strategy on Lisbon objectives

New recommendations propose re-focusing the EU’s
e-government strategy on speeding up the delivery and efficiency of
public services for businesses and citizens.

A group of senior national officials have proposed re-focusing
the EU’s e-government strategy on bolstering administrative
efficiency in order to meet the Lisbon competitiveness
objectives. 

In a statement, Information Society Commissioner Olli Rehn said
the recommendations were “an important contribution to the review
of the EU’s ‘Lisbon’ competitiveness strategy” and emphasised the
“key contribution that public administrations can make to improving
Europe’s competitiveness, growth, innovation and employment
rates”.

The group, which brought together officials from 30 European
countries under the chair of the Dutch Presidency, issued the
recommendations on 28 September in Amsterdam. The
recommendations focus on:

• Transforming public administrations to speed up responses to
  businesses and citizens to help deliver the Lisbon
  competitiveness objectives in 2010
• Defining concrete targets for 2010:
• • Reducing the administrative burden for businesses and citizens
    by 25%
  • Ensuring interoperability of pan-European public services using
    open standards
  • Defining common measurements for efficiency, red tape
    reduction, quality, trust and security of online public
    services
• Financing issues (ease of access, standard set of
  measurements on benefits, etc.) 

The recommendations come as the EU prepares to assess the
e-Europe 2005 Action Plan, which expires on 1 January.