On Thursday 13 September, an overwhelming majority of MEPs (539 for, 61 against and 17 abstentions) endorsed the interinstitutional agreement reached in May on the regulation for a European Single Digital Gateway.
“The new rules will establish a user-friendly, interactive European Single Digital Gateway which, based on people’s needs, will guide them to the most appropriate services and will provide access to all the necessary information and administrative procedures needed to move freely in the European Union”, the rapporteur for the text on behalf of the European Parliament, Marlene Mizzi (S&D, Malta), summed up concisely the day before the vote.
The “gateway” - to build on the existing one, Your Europe - aims to facilitate mobility and cross-border activity. It will give citizens and businesses access to a whole series of administrative procedures (birth certificate, registrations, etc.). It will refer to various internet sites and websites that already exist at national or Union levels. In addition, the regulation introduces the “once-only-principle” whereby, in just one step, it is possible to provide public administrations with information which may then afterwards be used again.
The interinstitutional agreement was adopted after three meetings. At times, talks were heated. Main sticking points were the kinds of services covered by the future portal (especially for entrepreneurial activity) and the number of procedures which in the end numbered 21, compared with 13 administrative procedures in the Commission’s proposal.
Regarding languages for translation, it was decided that the documents will be translated into the language most spoken by cross-border workers – usually English – something that Belgium found particularly annoying.
The other major bone of contention concerned cases of derogation where member states may request citizens to be physically present before the public authorities. This will be possible when “overriding reasons of public interest” in the field of security, health or fraud, are invoked.
Opinions also differed over the timeframe for implementation of the regulation. In the end, this was set at five years (see EUROPE 12026). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)