EU Council Presidency eGovernment conference sets priorities
Better use and reuse of data, and a reduction in the administrative burden are two eGovernment priorities, according to a statement concluding last week’s 'Digital Open Government: next step to maturity' conference.
The conference was organised by the Netherlands Presidency of the Council of the EU.
From the concluding statement:
The conference is in favour of an approach to:
- better (re)use available data, both when it comes to the re-use of public data by governments, the re-use of open government data by society, and the use of data in the public domain. Common conditions and shared principles are needed to facilitate cross border application of data reuse.
- implement 'once only' as a useful principle that supports administrative burden reduction given that data protection rules are respected. There should be a focus on relevant use cases. Data quality is a prerequisite for its re-use, this includes clarity about the meaning of the data. Common quality criteria are needed to facilitate cross-border reuse.
According to the statement, increasing trust in eGovernment services and making them easier to use are also important. “Cooperation within the EU and associated countries is needed in order to tackle the existing barriers, both domestic and cross-border, for setting significant next steps to further a higher level of maturity of digital government.”
The conference on 2 and 3 June in Amsterdam was attended by over 200 government decision-makers and senior policy-makers from 28 European countries.
More information:
Conclusions Conference Digital and Open Government
EU presidency conference "Digital and open government: next step to maturity"
Netherlands EU Presidency 2016 news item