National e-government strategies should be brought together at the EU level in order to boost proposals for European citizenship and a common constitution, Erkki Liikanen, European commissioner responsible for enterprise and information society, said on 7 July 2003. Addressing delegates at an e-government conference to mark Italy's EU presidency, Liikanen called for a new policy to ensure that people have access to e-services in all member states.
"By bringing national e-government strategies together at the European level we can support European citizenship and make the internal market a reality through pan-European services," he said.
"In Europe, citizens are free to work and re-locate within the EU. Enterprises can trade and carry out business across the EU. A policy objective should be that citizens and companies have access to e-government services in all member states. Integrating the pan-European in the national e-government strategies fits also well with the new European constitution which reinforces the concept of European citizenship."
Liikanen heralded the "breakthrough" of pan-European services. He said there is a "continuous evolution" of several key services which include:
- Eures, a one stop employment portal
- Solvit, which attempts to break through administrative obstacles that hold up people moving across borders
- Eurodac, a pan-European asylum system which involves a fingerprints database
Following his speech Liikanen announced the winners of the EU's e-government competition.
The winners were:
- Germany's Bremen Online Services which involves online transactions and e-signatures
- Austria's "Help" online guide to the government
- Spain's Agencia Tributaria for its online tax services
Quelle: Kablenet
