Brussels, 09/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - E-government services must cater for Europe's linguistic diversity and be delivered as close as possible to the customer. These were key conclusions of the recent IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations) conference, held in Brussels last September. The conference focused on the needs of cross-border users of e-government services. For citizens, these services include advice on living in another country (health care, driving licence, school, retirement, opening a bank account, finding employment etc). For enterprises, they include advice on accounting regulations, funding opportunities, human resources, employment laws, international trade, duties and procedures. To improve the current situation, the Conference saw the launching of the web-portal "Public-Services.eu" an EDA programme initiative aimed at providing information and services to assist citizens and enterprises carry out cross-border activities with public administrations across Europe. (This can be accessed at: http: //europa.eu.int/public-services), which provides information on government services of benefit to those who wish to work or re-locate across the Union. The conference also saw the publication of the results of the IDA open consultation on pan-European e-government services. It would appear that the barriers to pan-European government e-services are not exclusively technological or language related (although problems relating to interoperability and complex language issues were identified). The main barriers involve unfamiliarity with administrative processes in other Member States, perceived lack of transparency, non-equivalence of procedures, etc. This was validated by an e-Government Observatory report: 'Survey on E-Government Services to Enterprises', also published at the conference. The e-Government Observatory is an IDA initiative. The survey pointed out differences between the demand for services as envisaged by enterprises and the implementation of services as planned by public administration.