On Thursday 15 October, the European Commission launched the very first stage of its evaluation of measures to accompany the digitisation of public services. It has published a roadmap, setting out its ambitions and next steps, open for comment until 12 November 2020.
This first step will be followed by a public consultation in the first quarter of 2021 and a communication in the fourth quarter of 2021.
In its February 2020 Data Strategy, the European Commission underlines the importance of the digital transition (see EUROPE 12429/5). In particular, it announces an “enhanced EU government interoperability strategy ensuring coordination and common standards for secure and borderless public sector data flows and services”, with a view to breaking down digital silos.
The Commission’s roadmap announces: - an assessment of the implementation of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF, COM (2017) 134), a current set of non-binding rules; - and an evaluation of the ISA² 2016-2020 programme, the funding mechanism for measures implementing the European Interoperability Framework.
The interim evaluation of the ISA² programme, which was finalised in 2019, has indeed shown that insufficient interoperability remains a major problem.
The Commission states that the impact assessment will examine several regulatory and non-regulatory policy options for targeted intervention at EU level to address the problems identified in the assessment.
The options will be structured around the need: (1) new or updated common rules (binding or non-binding) on interoperability; (2) interoperability governance that ensures a coordinated approach across different sectors and levels of EU and national public administrations, and that takes due account of the views of stakeholders (citizens, businesses, IT companies, GovTech, standardisation bodies); (3) common solutions around interoperability (e.g.: shared solutions platform, GovTech incubator).
It should be recalled that the Commission also intends to present a proposal for an initiative on European digital identification by mid-2021, as requested by the European Council in early October (see EUROPE 12573/2). This system could be used by all European citizens on a voluntary basis and should also be accessible to private services.
Link to the consultation: https://bit.ly/341UCVb (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)