Every year, Wavestone performs a comprehensive study under the mandate of the European Commissions’ Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT) to assess the role of digital government within the European Semester process* covering all 28 European Union (EU) countries. The study aims to assess the key priorities and main trends in the field of digital government in Europe, as well as identify possible strategies to be put forward by the European Commission to address common challenges faced by the Member States.
* The European Semester is a cycle of economic and fiscal policy coordination which was established in 2010 in order to prevent discrepancies and contribute to ensuring convergence and stability across the EU.
From eGovernment to Digital Government
One of today’s most challenging goals for the EU is represented by the accomplishment of the digitalisation of public administration. Digitalisation and modernisation of public administration are an increasing priority among European Member States as it is crucial to respond to evolving users’ expectations and needs, especially in terms of public service delivery. However, the mere availability of digital public services through eGovernment portals does not suffice anymore to meet the growing needs and the higher demands of both citizens and businesses.
In light of this, in the last years there has been a paradigm shift in the European Union from the concept of eGovernment, which refers to the availability of digital public services for citizens and for businesses, to the broader one of digital government, which explores how governments can best use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to embrace good government principles and achieve policy goals. In order to accommodate this change, the European Services Team of Wavestone performed a major overhaul of the new edition of the yearly-published European Semester report
The European Semester report 2018
Each year, the European Commission analyses in detail Member States’ economic and structural reforms programmes and provides them with a set of recommendations for the following 12-18 months. During this time, Member States have to align their budgetary and economic policies with the objectives and rules agreed at EU level, both in terms of the Europe 2020 Strategy and of the Stability and Growth Pact.
The report examines how and to what extent the European Semester process addresses topics in the digital government field falling under the European Social and Investment Funds’ (ESIF) Thematic Objective 2 (Enhancing access to, and use and quality of, information and communication technologies) and 11 (Improving the efficiency of public administration). To accomplish this task, an in-depth analysis of the key documents from the European Semester is performed. In particular, the documents referred to within the study are the 2018 Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs), the 2018 National Reform Programmes (NRPs), as well as the Operational Programmes (OPs) for the programming period 2014 – 2020, which are financed through ESIF. After giving a detailed analysis of the digital government aspects present in the European Semester documents for each Member State, the report provides a synthesis and analysis of the key findings of the study based a revised common taxonomy.
Main take-aways
Building on the results of the in-depth content analysis, conclusions and recommendations for the European Commission, and in particular the ISA programme, are provided. In this regard, here are the main take-aways from the study:
/ Several Member States are still in the process of putting in place strategies, action plans and frameworks to enhance digital government and the efficiency of their public administrations. These measures should be closely supported by the Commission since they lay down the guiding principle of important building blocks of digital government such as infrastructures, web portals and common standards.
/ The enhancement of eSkills appears as a key priority across Europe, especially in relation to three stakeholder groups: students, adults seeking a job and civil servants.
/ The modernisation and the digitalisation of specific sectors like health, tax, mobility, culture and justice, emerged as one of the main priorities of several Member States.
/ Enhancing the delivery of public services to citizens and businesses is still seen as a priority in several Member States. To tackle this issue, Member States shall not only put in place the appropriate IT infrastructure, but also work on their organisational capabilities.
/ Despite legislative efforts both at European and national levels and increasingly high compliance rates, eProcurement still figures among the key reform priorities of different Member States, especially with regard to transparency and corruption issues.
To find out more details about our publication, please visit the European Commission website.
