Funding ICT research has positive long-term implications for the future and competitiveness of the European economy but there are current roadblocks that impact the spread of the information economy that the Lisbon agenda is predicated on. Two of the most significant hurdles are the regulatory framework for e-business in the member states and the need for overhauling the public sector which remains in urgent need of modernisation.
According to Fabio Colasanti, director general, DG Information Society, European Commission, “a new regulatory framework based on convergence and technological neutrality has been in force in the member states since July 2004, which should provide certainty to investors, increase competition and consumer choice.” However, substantial evidence exists from within the European Commission indicating that European enterprises face problems in engaging with e-business opportunities. A number of problems relate to how national administrations and judicial systems in the member states have chosen to implement in their own environments the e-directives that have emerged from the legal framework of the European Community. John Watson, an associate of mine and managing director of The Evaluation Partnership, a consultancy specialising in EU affairs, says, "Our studies in the European Commission have indicated that despite harmonisation on e-directives there are still serious challenges in e-business activity across Europe in four main regulatory areas: e-signatures, e-invoicing, contract conclusion and contract implementation."
While the European Commission is currently benchmarking national practices on implementing the e-directives as part of its eEurope Action Plan 2005 in order to decide how to proceed, there is one area impacting competitiveness where there is already significant activity: e-government.
Making e-government work
The Wim Kok competitiveness report highlighted the key role that e-government has in delivering the Lisbon agenda, something that had never been formally acknowledged in any of the Commission’s previous “e” action plans. Now e-government has become as important a pillar of the eEurope Action Plan 2005 as e-business itself. Jean-Claude Burgelman, chief ICT scientist, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Spain is not surprised by this: “Governments spend around 45% of the EU’s gross domestic product. Rather than lagging the private sector, they have the potential to stimulate demand and pull innovation.”
Colasanti is encouraged by the progress made across the EU: “E-government is today at the core of national policies for the Information Society, and benchmarking shows that basic government services that were fully available online grew from 17% to 43% between October 2001 and October 2003.
On-line public services are the most visible manifestation of e-government in action. Most on-line services are oriented around a national ministry or government department but increasingly web portals are being used to expose information from a number of different sources. The evolution of on-line services from organisation-oriented to task-oriented user-centric services reflect the huge challenges that are surfacing in the modernisation processes that are impacting European governments right now. Pete Hayes, former EMEA vice president Public Sector, Microsoft is clear that e-government is “not about technology. It’s about the need to re-invent business processes in government. It will take a lot of commitment and budget from government to achieve what they want.”
Interoperability across Europe
The debate about on-line public services has created a separate one about interoperability, the working together of multiple systems. If ever a technology word was created for the European context, surely interoperability is it, as 25 different member states strive to get their systems to interoperate, sometimes while pulling in opposite directions. One of the Commission’s main assets in achieving pan-European interoperability is the IDA unit in DG Enterprise. A recent evaluation of the IDA programme by The Evaluation Partnership found that although the IDA II programme’s main objective is building interoperable networks across the EU, such networks are only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for enabling the interoperability of government. Watson’s study of the IDA programme found that “interoperability goes deeper and wider than simply technology interoperability. Getting legal definitions, policies and programmes to share a common way of working together - in other words, to be interoperable - is something that governments are just beginning to grapple with.”
Is Europe ready to deal with the challenge of being the most competitive economy in the world? Only time will tell but Fabio Colasanti is sure that “there is no time to lose.” He may well be right.
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