Brussels, 25/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the European Commission unveiled an eGovernment Action Plan for administrative modernisation and better targetting of the population by 2010. The European Commission argues that 100% take-up of electronic invoicing and electronic public procurement is predicted to save 300 billion euros every year. All Member States already signed up to an ambitious agenda to achieve these goals in Manchester last year. The Action Plan outlines five concrete steps, namely 1) No citizens left behind. eGovernment will only really make a difference if everyone can use it. The Commission will work with Member States to make sure that by 2010 all citizens, regardless of gender, age, nationality, income, or disability will have access to a wide range of technologies such as Digital TV, PCs and mobile phones. 2) Raising efficiency. Governments account for 45% of EU GDP, which has to be paid from taxes. All Member States have undertaken to use information technology to achieve considerable gains in efficiency and significant reductions in red tape by 2010. 3) Implementing e-Procurement. Government procurement represents 15% of GDP or about €1.500 billion a year. The Member States have pledged to achieve 100% availability and at least 50% take-up of procurement online by 2010, with an estimated annual saving of €40 billion. 4) Safe access to services EU-wide. When citizens travel or when they move they want easy access to services. EU governments have agreed to facilitate this process by establishing secure systems for mutual recognition of national electronic identities for public administration web-sites and services. The Commission will help make this happen by supporting wide-scale cross-border demonstrators, identifying common specifications for electronic ID management during 2007 and by reviewing the rules of electronic signatures in 2009. 5) Strengthening participation and democratic decision-making. 65% of respondents to the Commission's public consultation on eGovernment said that eDemocracy can help reduce Europe's democratic deficit.
The Commission argues that e-government initiatives have already led to considerable savings of time and money in some Member States. Public service eProcurement in Italy resulted in savings of €3.2 billion by 2003 (for example an average saving of 34% on PCs). Portugal has reported savings of 30% through electronic public procurement. Full deployment of e-Procurement across the EU could reduce this bill by up to €80 billion a year, explains the European Commission. “We are starting to see benefits from Europe's investments in 'eGovernment' over the last few years, but we need to be more active in learning lessons from each other and getting the benefits of scale from adopting common approaches across borders,” declared Viviane Reding, Information Society and Media Commissioner. “eGovernment is no longer just a political toy, it is the essential tool of government, for modernising Europe's public administrations”.