Connecting Public Services Communities · 2017. 10. 3. · CONNECTiNg PubliC SErviCES COmmuNiTiES...

Connect ing Pub l ic Ser v ices Communi t ies European Review of Pol i t ical Technologies

Volume 7, October 2008

Editorial Review Board

Edi tors - in -Chie f

Hubert FABRE, Ph.D.

Daniel VAN LERBERGHE

Assoc ia te Ed i tors

Laurence ROELANTS

Robert W. DELLER, Ph.D.

Philippe SCHEIMANN

Luc-Ki Sung LEVECQ

Marianne BERRY

Alexis BERNARD

Contact the Ed i tor ia l Rev iew Board:

[email protected]

POLITECH INSTITUTE (European Center of Political Technologies)

AISBL: 871 – 481 – 256

67, rue Saint Bernard

1060 Brussels

BELGIUM

Tel: +32 (0)2 537 33 06

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.politech-institute.org

Published with the support of Microsoft EMEA Legal & Corporate Affairs.

Published in partnership with EIPA (European Institute of Public Administration).

Acknowledgements: We would like to show our gratitude to Sylvia ARCHMANN, Seconded National Expert, EIPA, The Netherlands and Just CASTILLO IGLESIAS, EIPA, The Netherlands, as well as to the Annual Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia, and The World eDemocracy Forum, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, for their collaboration and support.

Cover design: Daniel VAN LERBERGHE, POLITECH INSTITUTE

Legal Depot: D/2008/10.819/3

© 2008 POLITECH INSTITUTE (European Center of Political Technologies) The views expressed in this publication are the authors’ and do not necessary reflect those of POLITECH INSTITUTE. The documents and information herein represent copyrighted materials and may not be edited, altered, or otherwise modified, except with the express permission of the authors.

Editorial Review Board

Edi tors - in -Chie f

Hubert FABRE, Ph.D.

Daniel VAN LERBERGHE

Assoc ia te Ed i tors

Laurence ROELANTS

Robert W. DELLER, Ph.D.

Philippe SCHEIMANN

Luc-Ki Sung LEVECQ

Marianne BERRY

Alexis BERNARD

Contact the Ed i tor ia l Rev iew Board:

[email protected]

POLITECH INSTITUTE (European Center of Political Technologies)

AISBL: 871 – 481 – 256

67, rue Saint Bernard

1060 Brussels

BELGIUM

Tel: +32 (0)2 537 33 06

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.politech-institute.org

Published with the support of Microsoft EMEA Legal & Corporate Affairs.

Published in partnership with EIPA (European Institute of Public Administration).

Acknowledgements: We would like to show our gratitude to Sylvia ARCHMANN, Seconded National Expert, EIPA, The Netherlands and Just CASTILLO IGLESIAS, EIPA, The Netherlands, as well as to the Annual Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia, and The World eDemocracy Forum, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, for their collaboration and support.

Cover design: Daniel VAN LERBERGHE, POLITECH INSTITUTE

Legal Depot: D/2008/10.819/3

© 2008 POLITECH INSTITUTE (European Center of Political Technologies) The views expressed in this publication are the authors’ and do not necessary reflect those of POLITECH INSTITUTE. The documents and information herein represent copyrighted materials and may not be edited, altered, or otherwise modified, except with the express permission of the authors.

III

Honorary & Scient i f ic Committee

Peggy AGOURIS PhD, Associate Professor, Departmentof Spatial Information Science andEngineering, University of Maine.

United States

Alexander ALVARO Member of the European Parliament,Committee on Civil Liberties, Justiceand Home Affairs, Committee on LegalAffairs, Delegation for relations with thePalestinian Legislative Council,Delegation for relations with Australiaand New Zealand.

Germany

Sylvia ARCHMANN Seconded National Expert, EuropeanInstitute of Public Administration(EIPA).

Austria

Guido BERTUCCI Director, Division for PublicAdministration and DevelopmentManagement, Department of Economicand Social Affairs, UNDESA.

United Nations

Yannis CHARALABIDIS Head, eGovernment Research Unit,National Technical University of Athens.

Greece

Baudouin DE SONIS Executive Director, eForum (Forum forEuropean e-Public Services).

Belgium

Ildikó ÉKES Professor and Head, Department forSocial Analysis, ECOSTAT.

Hungary

Matthias FINGER Professor and Director of Chair,Management of Network Industries ande-Governance, EPFL (Swiss FederalInstitute of Technology).

Switzerland

Rimantas GATAUTIS Professor, Kaunas University ofTechnology.

Latvia

Panagiotis GEORGIADIS Professor, eGovernment Laboratory,Department of Informatics andTelecommunications, University ofAthens.

Greece

Julia A. GLIDDEN PhD, Strategic Advisor, InternationalCentre of Excellence for LocaleDemocracy (ICELE).

United Kingdom

Dimitris GOUSCOS Professor, eGovernment Laboratory,Department of Informatics andTelecommunications, University ofAthens.

Greece

IV

Honorary & Scient i f ic Committee

Panos HAHAMIS Senior Lecturer, Business Information,Management and Operations,Westminster Business School.

United Kingdom

François HEINDERYCKX Professor & Head Information &Communication (INFOCOM),Information & Communication SciencesDept. (SIC), Brussels Free University(ULB).

Belgium

Maitland HYSLOP Chief Executive, Ross and CromartyEnterprise.

United Kingdom

Dylan JEFFREY Senior Policy Advisor, LocalGovernment Modernisation andEfficiency, Department for Communitiesand Local Government.

United Kingdom

Dan JELLINEK Editor, eGovernment Bulletin andDirector and Co-founder, Headstar.

United Kingdom

Richard KERBY Senior Advisor, KnowledgeManagement Branch, Department ofEconomic and Social Affairs, UNDESA.

United Nations

Edwin LAU Coordinator, Public ManagementReview, Public Governance & TerritorialDevelopment Directorate, OECD.

OECD

Hervé LE GUYADER President of the Board, eris@ andManaging Director of AEC.

Belgium

Eric LEGALE Managing Director, Issy Media. France

Sébastien LÉVY Vice President, Global Forum andPartner, ITEMS International.

France

Anita LOWER Councillor, Castle Ward, Newcastle CityCouncil.

United Kingdom

Jeremy MILLARD Senior Consultant, Policy and BusinessAnalysis, Danish Technological Institute.

Denmark

Alexander NILSSON Senior Programme Manager, VINNOVA(Swedish Governmental Agency forInnovation Systems).

Sweden

Phil NOBLE Founder, PoliticsOnline, the premierinternational company providingfundraising and Internet tools forpolitics.

United States

Raj Kumar PRASAD CEO, India Chapter, the CommonwealthCentre for eGovernance.

India

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Honorary & Scienti f ic Committee

Lawrence PRATCHETT Professor, Local Democracy andDirector of the Local GovernanceResearch Unit, De Montfort University.

United Kingdom

Mary REID Mayor, Royal Borough of Kingston uponThames and Councilor for ChessingtonNorth & Hook Ward Royal Borough ofKingston upon Thames.

United Kingdom

Michael REMMERT PhD, Head, “Good Governance in theInformation Society” Project, Council ofEurope.

Europe

Leslie D. REYNOLDS Executive Director, National Associationof Secretaries of State.

United States

Andrew ROBINSON PhD, Honorary Consul for France in theUK, Senior Advisor, Consultant.

United Kingdom

Tomás SABOL Professor, Technical University, Ko_ice. Slovakia

André SANTINI Mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux andMember of Government.

France

Bernhard SCHNITTGER Former Deputy Head of Unit, IDABC,DG Enterprise and Industry, EuropeanCommission, Background in PoliticalScience and International Relations.

Germany

Irnério SEMINATORE Professor, Founder and President,European Institute of InternationalRelations (IERI).

Belgium

Madeleine SIÖSTEEN THIEL Senior Programme Manager, VINNOVA(Swedish Governmental Agency forInnovation Systems).

Sweden

Sylviane TOPORKOFF PhD, President, Global Forum andPartner, ITEMS International.

France

Tom M. VAN ENGERS Professor, Juridical KnowledgeManagement, Faculty of Law, Universityof Amsterdam.

TheNetherlands

Dianne LUX WIGAND Research Associate and Professor,Institute of Government,University of Arkansas at Little Rock,Editorial Board of the InformationSystems Management Journal.

United States

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Irina ZALISOVA PhD, Director of BMI Association andEPMA (European Projects &Management Agency).

Czech Republic

Contents


Irina ZALISOVA PhD, Director of BMI Association andEPMA (European Projects &Management Agency).

Czech Republic

<www.pol i tech- inst i tute.org>

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE i s a Eu ropean and i n te rna t iona l mee t i ng-po in t f o r a l ls t ak eho lde rs and end -us e rs t o ov erc ome t he c ha l l enges o f d i g i t a lgove rnance and democ rac y , wh i l e re i nv ent i ng modern po l i t ic s and pub l icgove rnance i n Cy be rs pac e .

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE i s a Eur opean Center of Pol i t ica l Technol ogi es andan ‘ i nnovat ion-dr iven Do-Tank ’ ded i c a t ed t o promo t e nov e l c onc ep t s andinnov a t i on empower ing t he d i f f e ren t s t ak eho lde rs i n a ‘ c i t i z en -d r i v en’ d i g i t a lwo r l d , as we l l as t o s uppo r t t he dev e lopmen t o f e f fec t i v e s t ra teg ies , po l i c i esand s ha re o f good p rac t i c es i n t he c onv e rg ing doma ins of Po l i t i c a lTechno log ies - ePol i t i c s , ePar t i c i pa t i on , eDemoc racy , eD ip lomacy ,eCi t i z ensh ip , eGov e rnanc e and eGov e rnmen t .

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE o f f e r s i t s members a Eu ropean and I n t erna t i ona lp la t f o rm o f ne twork , ex c hange , c ons u l t a t i on , i n f o rma t i on , deba te , t r a i n i ng ,and a Eur opean home t o res earc h and dev elopment i n i t i a t i v es t o gene ra teinnov a t i on and s ha re good prac t i ces i n t he conver gi ng domai ns of Pol i t i ca lTechnol ogi es .

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE i s c on t inua l l y dev e lop ing add i t iona l innov a t i v eac t i v i t i es and upg rading i t s c u r ren t ones based on i t s c ore c ompe t enc ies f ort he bene f i t o f i t s members and t he who le c ommun i t y o f s t ak eho lde rs t oenhanc e Eu ropean i nnov a t i on, v i s ib i l i t y and pa r t ne rs h ip in t he conver gi ngdomai ns of Pol i t i ca l Technol ogi es , as a European We l l sp r i ng o f Ex ce l l enceand I nnova t i on t o meet s uc ces s f u l l y t he c ha l lenges o f modern po l i t i c s andpubl i c gov e rnanc e i n Cy be rspac e .

Boost YOUR Capac i ty Bui l di ng and Compet i t i veness i n the conver gi ngdomai ns of Pol i t i ca l Technol ogi es!

For mor e i n for mat i on contact us @ i nfo@pol i tech- i nst i tu te. or g

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CONTENTS

Editorial: Connecting Public Services Communities 1 at the Bled eConference. Joze GRICAR, Professor, Director of eCenter, Faculty of Organisational Sciences, University of Maribor, Slovenia.

Introduction: Introducing Connecting Public Services Communities 7Sylvia ARCHMANN, Austrian Seconded National Expert, European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA), The Netherlands, and Daniel VAN LERBERGHE, President & Executive Director, POLITECH INSTITUTE (European Center of Political Technologies), Belgium.

R e s e a r c h & P o l i c y S h a p i n g

Interview with Signe BALINA, Minister for Special Assignments 13 for Electronic Government Affairs, Latvia

Signe BALINA, Minister for Special Assignments for Electronic Government Affairs, Latvia.

Interview with Dusan KRICEJ, Ministry of Public Administration, Slovenia. 23

Dusan KRICEJ, Deputy Director General, Directorate for eGovernment and Administrative Processes, Ministry of Public Administration, Slovenia.

The Importance of Interoperability, Standards and Electronic 31

Identity Management to European Participation and Democracy

Morten MEYERHOFF NIELSEN, Consultant, Danish Technological Institute, Denmark.

Linking Up eGovernment, Building a Digital Europe: Drivers, 45 Obstacles and Policy Options for the Development of Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGS)Constantijn VAN ORANJE, Research Leader, Head of Information Policy & Economics, RAND Europe, Belgium and Rifka WEERHUIZEN, Senior Researcher, UNU-MERIT, The Netherlands.

C a s e S t u d i e s & Te c h n o l o g i c a l D e m o n s t r a t i o n s

Implementation of the EU Services Directive 57

Klaus-Peter ECKERT, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Germany.

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CONTENTS

Interview with Frank LEYMAN, FEDICT, Belgium 65

Frank LEYMAN, Relationship Manager, Federal Public Service for ICT (FEDICT), Belgium.

Living Labs: Challenges for Networking in Open Innovation Environments 73

Bror SALMELIN, Head of the Electronic Commerce Unit (C3), Information Society Directorate-General, European Commission, Europe.

Registry Information Service on European Residents: Trans-border 83

eService in European Civil RegistrationIrena TRSINAR, Head of Section for the Central Population Register and Data Management,Ministry of the Interior, Slovenia and Hendrik TAMM, Director, Public Authorities, RISER ID Services GmbH, Germany.

C u r r e n t D e b a t e s

eGovernment, Communities and Interoperability in an Evolving IT World: 93 a Company’s View Andreas EBERT, Regional Technology Officer, Microsoft EMEA and Mark LANGE, Senior Policy Councel, Microsoft EMEA.

Report: “Connecting Public Services Communities” Roundtable 103 in the Framework of the 21st Bled eConference “eCollaboration: Overcoming Boundaries Through Multi-Channel Interaction”, Slovenia, June 15-18, 2008

Alain KERAVEL, Professor and Director, HEC-EOLE Laboratory, France.

Good Practices of Interoperability 111

Just CASTILLO IGLESIAS, European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA), The Netherlands.

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E D I T O R I A L D. van Lerberghe

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* Joze GRICAR is Professor of Information Systems & eCenter Director in the Faculty of

Organizational Sciences at the University of Maribor, and a contact person of eLiving Lab

[http://eLivingLab.org]. He received Ph.D. degree in business & information systems from the

University of Ljubljana in 1984. Prior to joining the University of Maribor, he was holding various

managerial positions in Commerce Ljubljana, Representative of Foreign Firms for eleven years.

Since the beginning in 1988, he is the Committee Chair of the annual Bled eConference

[http://BledConference.org].

EDITORIAL

Joze GRICAR* Professor, Director of eCenter, Faculty of Organisational Sciences, University of Maribor, Slovenia

CONNECTING PUBLIC SERVICES COMMUNITIES AT THE BLED

eCONFERENCE

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CONNECTiNg PubliC SErviCES COmmuNiTiES aT ThE blEd eCONfErENCE J. Gricar

For already 21 years, the Bled eConference has been taking place with the aim of sharing experiences, learning, and bringing together the most relevant key personalities in all

aspects related to government, public administration and ICT. During this year’s edition of the eConference, eCollaboration: Overcoming Boundaries Through Multi-Channel interaction, EIPA and POLITECH INSTITUTE presented the brilliant initiative entitled “Connecting Public Services Communities”, an initiative aiming at establishing a community of good practice for Cross-Border Interoperability.

The benefits and importance of interoperability in today’s united Europe are enormous, since interoperability opens the doors to the realization of pan-European eGovernment Services and to the completion of the Internal Market.

Therefore, as chair of the Bled eConference Committee, I am completely positive about the initiative and glad that the Bled eConference was chosen as the event to launch it. I am convinced that thanks to the presence of diplomats and high level experts a positive contribution was made to spreading the importance of interoperability for our united and interconnected Europe.

The true added value of an initiative like “Connecting Public Services Communities” is to increase effectively the visibility of efforts and activities taken across Europe to create more interoperable solutions, while at the same time establishing links between the key stakeholders at all levels: direct link with the decision-makers, researchers and private enterprises.

I hope that such an excellent initiative will culminate in the effective establishment of a community of practice on Interoperability, which continues to share valuable experiences helping to strengthen and maintain the links between the key stakeholders in Europe.

If the Roundtable launched in Bled was an indicator for the quality and value of the initiative, this edition of the European Review of Political Technologies will surely be of great help and interest.

EurOPEaN rEviEW Of POliTiCal TEChNOlOgiES 7/2008

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EIPA is the leading centre of European learning and development for the public sector. With over 25 years experience, EIPA is the place where people who deal with European affairs can learn in a multi-cultural environment benefiting from our unique combination of practical know-how and scientific excellence. With its headquarters in Maastricht, antennae in Luxembourg, Barcelona, Milan and Warsaw and a presence in Brussels, EIPA is alert to developments across Europe and responsive to your needs and interests. We help you to meet the challenges of Europe and the complexities of modern public management. LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT EIPA's Learning and Development options consist of seminars and training courses in European decision-making, policies, law and public management.

• Seminars Our seminars address the latest developments and upcoming challenges in key areas of European affairs and public management. For example they address the challenges posed by new European legislation, procedures or initiatives. They offer you the possibility to share in a practice-oriented discussion with leading experts and counterparts from other countries and institutions.

• Training courses Our training courses are short and to the point. They are intensive and interactive. Most aim to update knowledge and deepen understanding of the European environment in which people operate and the particular policy areas they need to master. Others provide an opportunity to acquire or upgrade skills in a multi-cultural context. EIPA activities are usually organized at EIPA, where you can benefit from interaction with a multi-national group of participants. Many courses can also be delivered on request in your own premises or at an EIPA location close to you. Our specialised staff are happy to discuss with you how we can customise our courses to meet your particular needs and priorities, around core modules which have been market-tested at European level over the years. Courses can be offered in various languages. We can also organize intensive workshops and focus groups on specific issues.







NOTES ON ThE imPaCT Of rESEarCh ON ThE dEvElOPmENT ON egOvErNmENT J. E. Fountain

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* Sylvia ARCHMANN is an Austrian Seconded National Expert to EIPA (European Institute of

Public Administration), expert on eGovernment, Change Management, Quality Management, Performance Management and Administrative Development, project leader of the Modinis Study on Interoperability on Local and Regional Level in eGovernment – [http://www.eipa.eu]. **Daniel VAN LERBERGHE is President & Executive Director of POLITECH INSTITUTE. Daniel is joint editor-in-chief of the European Review of Political Technologies. He is also a member of various Steering and Scientific Committees of prominent international conferences and has published various articles in different academic reviews – [http://www.politech-institute.eu].

INTRODUCTION

Sylvia ARCHMANN* Austrian Seconded National Expert, EIPA (European Institute of Public Administration), The Netherlands Daniel VAN LERBERGHE** President & Executive Director, POLITECH INSTITUTE (European Center of Political Technologies), Belgium

INTRODUCING CONNECTING PUBLIC SERVICES COMMUNITIES

ERPT 7 - Introduction Cover Page Sylvia ARCHMANN & Daniel VAN LERBERGHE.pdf 09-10-2008 15:00:28


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7

iNTrOduCiNg “CONNECTiNg PubliC SErviCES COmmuNiTiES” S. Archmann & D. Van Lerberghe

In the Lisbon eGovernment Ministerial Declaration (2007), EU Member States emphasised Cross-Border Interoperability amongst four set policy actions; thus driving future

eGovernment developments and policies in Europe to be key enablers in achieving an Internal Market without electronic barriers and reap the benefits of eGovernment.

Cross-Border Interoperability is crucial to achieve higher efficiency and better quality in public services delivery; it is also a fundamental pillar for the completion of the Single Market.

Two decades ago, physical borders were abolished amongst EU Member States; today, we are eliminating electronic barriers to enable better eGovernment service provision across Europe.

Therefore, Cross-Border Interoperability is a relevant issue for us all!

Beyond its purely technical dimension, decision-makers and policy-makers are aware that ensuring the proper cooperation of platforms from different levels of administration or from different countries is an important step for the provision of innovative and better public services, which will impact EU citizen’s lives and their mobility across Europe.

By implementing interoperability, using an electronic identity card (eID) or digital certificates anytime and anywhere in the EU can slowly become a reality for anyone.

Cross-Border Interoperability is also essential to achieve Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGS) and has been identified as one of the key policy actions of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), spanning over the first half of 2008.

POLITECH INSTITUTE (European Center of Political Technologies) and EIPA (European Institute of Public Administration) have successfully launched a pan-European practical reflection entitled, Connecting Public Services Communities, to stimulate debate, learning, sharing and the exchange of good practices amongst EU Member States and eGovernment stakeholders to successfully meet the challenges raised by the EU eGovernment Ministerial Declaration on Cross-Border Interoperability.

Building on the results of the first ‘Connecting Public Services Communities’ roundtable and interest group of stakeholders meeting, which was held in June 2008 during the 21st Bled eConference in Slovenia, this Exclusive and Prestigious Edition of The European Review of Political Technologies (ERPT), aims at tackling the challenges raised by Cross-Border Interoperability and PEGS, such as achieving Internal Market objectives and implementing the EC Service Directive, which requires broad interoperability and the breaking down of electronic barriers between and within European, national, regional and local public administrations .

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The present volume brings together a collection of articles and interviews from key European eGovernment interoperability stakeholders and projects from public and private sectors, academia and civil society, debating, sharing their views and exchanging practices and experiences to overcome TOGETHER this key challenge for Europe, depending on a variety of organisational, technical and semantic rules, which may or not be compatible.

We hope this Connecting Public Services Communities initiative and volume will offer you a valuable resource for learning, sharing and exchanging opinions, good practices and issues to contribute effectively in making Cross-Border Interoperability a reality across Europe.

This Exclusive and Prestigious Edition is presented under the French EU Presidency at Issy-les-Moulineaux (France), in collaboration with the ninth World eDemocracy Forum (16-17 October 2008 - www.edemocracy-forum.com).

Research & Po l icy Shap ing

<www.pol i tech- inst i tute.org /review.asp>

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE publ i s hes t he Eur opean Rev i ew of Pol i t i ca lTechnol ogi es (ERPT) , a un ique pan -European on l i ne pe r iod i c a l b r i dg ing t hedoma ins of Po l i t i c a l Tec hnolog ies .

Th is pub l i c a t i on o f f er s s t ak eho lde rs and end -us e rs f r om pub l i c , ac ademic ,c i v i l and p r i v at e s ec t o rs an ex c lus i v e f o rum t o deba t e , ex c hange , i n fo rm,demons t rat e , s ha re bes t p rac t i c es on c ur ren t i s s ues re la t i ng t o res earc h anddeve lopmen t , po l i c y shap ing, nov el c oncep t s , app l i ca t i ons , adv anc edt echno log ies , tec hno log i c a l i nnova t i ons and suc c es s f u l expe r i enc es i n t hec onv e rg ing domains o f Po l i t i c a l Tec hno log ies .

The ma in pu rpose o f ERPT i s t o empower Eu rope as a ma jo r eng ine wh i l egene ra t i ng s us ta inab le s y nerg ies and c o l l abo ra t i on among t hes e re la t eda reas and t he i r d i f f eren t s t ak eholde rs t owards a c ommon European s t ra t eg i cv i s i on and t he adv ancemen t o f modern pub l i c gov e rnanc e and democ rac y .

Each I s s ue i s d i v i ded i n 3 s ec t i ons , name ly :

@ “ Resear ch and Pol i cy Shapi ng”

@ “ Case S tudi es and Technol ogi ca l Demonstr a t i ons”

@ “ Cur r ent Debates”

ERPT p rov ides a l l s t ak eho lde rs w i t h a wide range o f pe rs pec t i v es f r omd i f f e ren t s t ak eho lde rs and d i s c ip l i nes .

Qual i t y and Ex ce l l ence i s the p r imary mis s ion o f ERPT Ed i t o r i a l Boa rd andHonora ry Sc ien t i f i c Commi t tee c ompos ed o f r enowned i n t e rna t i onal andEuropean ex pe r ts , p rac t i t i one rs , l eade rs and pub l i c o f f i c i a l s .

Enhance YOUR v is i b i l i t y for i n i t ia t i ves, pr o jec ts , pr oducts & ac t i v i t i es i nEurope!

For mor e i n for mat i on contact us @ edi tor @pol i tech- ins t i tute . or g

ERPT - ERPT Description - 2.doc.pdf 09-10-2008 15:43:17

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* Signe BALINA has been recently appointed Minister for Special Assignments for Electronic

Government Affairs in Latvia. Before that, she has pursued a successful academic carrier at the

University of Latvia. Minister BALINA is Member of the Board of numerous national and

international associations in the field of Communication Technologies.

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEW WITH

Signe BALINA, Minister for Special Assignments for

Electronic Government Affairs, Latvia

Signe BALINA* Minister for Special Assignments for Electronic Government Affairs, Latvia

Being an essential element to achieve Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGs) in Europe, cross-border interoperability has been identified by the European Union Member States as one of the 4 policy actions of the Lisbon eGovernment Ministerial Declaration (Sept 2007), which will drive eGovernment future developments and enable the creation of an Internal Market without electronic barriers. What would be your recommendations in terms of Critical Success Factors to achieve pan-European eGovernment Services and implement successfully the EC Service Directive? Signe BALINA, Latvian Minister for Special Assignments for Electronic Government Affairs, is interviewed by Daniel VAN LERBERGHE, ERPT’s Editor-in-chief.

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iNTErviEW WiTh SigNE baliNa S. Balina

1. Your predecessor, Latvian Minister for eGovernment Affairs, Ina Gudele, has announced plans to introduce at least 25 new ‘interinstitutional’ eServices by June 2008. Can you briefly present these new ‘interinstitutional’ eServices?

Altogether 28 eServices (including various information services), which the government and government institutions offer, are undergoing the process of electronization in

the framework of the project “eGovernment Portfolio”. The following processes will be carried out as well: information processing and preparation for provision of services (eServices), adjustment of processes and procedures, and creation of the regulatory system and catalogue of eServices.

The state information systems are in the process of integration with Integrated State Information System (ISIS) and the connections of registers to ISIS infrastructure are being development. IS-services are also designed within ISIS for receiving the information necessary for the provision of eServices from the registers.

The services provided by Information Center (IC) of the Ministry of the Interior are undergoing the process of integration: there are special services created for linking together the ISIS infrastructure and the Ministry of the Interior IC internal process management tool in order to successfully accomplish eServices pilot project.

Starting from February 2008, there was the first interdepartmental electronic pilot service available called “Information about the Persons with Valid Residence Registration at My Property”. The following eService was developed by the Secretariat in cooperation with the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, the State Land Service and the Court Administration. Today, one may get 2 more eServices at www.latvija.lv portal, such as “Documents Verification in the Invalid Document Register” and “My Local Government Data”.

At present, there are a total number of 26 technically provided eServices and they are being tested and adapted to the infrastructure. Along with that, the Secretariat is working on making a law of service electronization to ensure the legal foundation for receiving and usage of the data necessary for provision of services. It is planned to make these eServices publicly available in the third quarteral of 2008.

The technical production of the project is carried out by a general contractor and the winner of the open competitive tender “RIX Technologies” Ltd. The cooperation partners of the project and the owners of services are: the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, the State Land Service, the Court Administration, the Ministry of the Interior IC, the State Police, the Riga and Ventspils City Council.

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2. The main challenge faced by the Secretariat for eGovernment Affairs in preparing these services has been ‘interoperability’ of systems between the different governmental bodies. What were the main issues in terms of interoperability and how were they solved?

Before Integrated State Information System’s (ISIS) creation, the world and another Baltic state experience were taken into account. A major part of this attention was fixed on Estonian X-Road system. ISIS was created on X-Road’s successful usage principle: defined centralized data exchange point, standardized data exchange formats and protocols. The main difference is that ISIS tries to use already existing state registers and information systems data exchange infrastructure, if it exists.

At the time, when in the integration process was applied principle ‘each system is to be integrated with each other system’ had gone, and today this approach is not acceptable, because it’s a technological deadlock. Information is stored in data bases, which number continues to grow uninterruptedly. Data base realization technologies are different; therefore, if there are not used technologic platforms independent integration methods, technologic compatibility problems often appear. Communication infrastructure, which is used for information exchange, is in different technical condition and does not guarantee uninterrupted connection. The integration software should be able to process situations, when communication channels become very slow or inaccessible. This situation determines the choice, offering a definite technologic solution, which is based on the following principles:

Integration technological standard should be prevalent, i.e. independent of different •software technologies;

Integration standard should be based on the best world-scale experience and •correspond to standard, which is accepted and developed by international level IT companies at present time;

Integration software should be scalable: have the possibility to increase its •performance without complex reprogramming work, in fact, decreasing “down-time” to minimum, because the infrastructure of this software will be the basis for the eService implementation, and in the future it is planned, that service electronization and use intensity will grow;

Integration software should have guaranteed development perspectives by the •producer;

As the integration software will simultaneously be the environment, in which •eServices will be developed, there should be a possibility to modify eService or to make it from the beginning, putting in as least programming work as possible;

ISIS solution includes best practices of similar eGovernment integration approaches •which are, for example, in Denmark, UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Estonia and elsewhere.

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The time, when in the integration process was applied the principle ‘each system is to be integrated with each other system’, had gone, and today this approach is not acceptable, because it’s a technological deadlock. Information is stored in data bases, which number continues uninterruptedly grow. Data base realization technologies are different; therefore, if there are not used technologic platforms independent integration methods, technologic compatibility problems often appear. Communication infrastructure, which is used for information exchange, is in different technical condition and does not guarantee uninterrupted connection. The integration software should be able to process situations, when communication channels become very slow or inaccessible.

When addressing interoperability (IOP), we commonly categorise IOP into 3. 3 categories, namely ‘Technical IOP’, ‘Semantic IOP’ and ‘Organisational IOP’. Following the lessons learned from this important initiative, could you point out the critical success factors for each interoperability category you encountered during your initiative? Could you provide examples to illustrate your answer? The main problems encountered while creating the interdepartmental services can be divided into 3 categories that include the semantic, organizational and technical levels.

Semantic level – the problem of data interpretation

The way a data user grasps, comprehends and understands the meaning and essence of data provided by a data provider. The data user must be aware and have a good knowledge about the legislation and the business processes of the data provider in order to come to the correct conclusions about the essence of the data received and about the decisions that can be made on the basis of such data.

Example: How does anyone who took the data understands the answer for the

question “Is this person registered in the population register?” or, for instance, the answer for the question “Is the residence registration of this person valid or not?” The problem is also of an international level, where it becomes even more complicated.

Organizational level

The initial access for data exchange between institutions was based upon creating a solution for a specific need (e. g. for services). Likewise, there are many institutions that, up to this day, have not commenced any data submission to other institutions (in this way playing a role of a postman carrying papers from one institution to another). As for today, the data using paradigm has undergone some changes that offer much more unrestricted data exchange. And according to the experience of 25 service pilot projects, Institutions do not always grasp this approach; some institutions are oriented towards function performance and they lack understanding and knowledge about creating services for the residents. The institutions that are not used to exchanging data with other institutions do not always tend to invest means into unification of working data.

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Institutions possess a strongly engrained instinct of personal identity and so not only wish to keep control over their data but also have the tendency to consider themselves as the owners, not the keepers or managers of the data they have in possession.

Even though the legislation states that Institutions have no rights to ask residents to submit the information already collected and placed into State information systems, it is still necessary to conduct educational and explanatory work to encourage the cooperation between Institutions in the name of the common goal – bringing benefit to the residents.

By creating services on the basis of centralized infrastructure, departments want to keep the control over their data (IS services) and each specific case of using this data. They also believe it is their duty to take care of the semantic interpretation of the data. That is why these are the issues the sides should reach an agreement about.

With this, in order to create interagency services, the sides involved should determine the borders of their cooperation – the rights of those who provide and receive the data, responsibilities etc.

During creation process, the sides involved make an agreement about cooperation in providing a specific service. Within the framework of the agreement, the following issues are reviewed: Institutions responsible for performance of the specific activity, definition of responsibility and others.

In addition to that, the agreements about the usage of centralized eService infrastructure (State Information System Integrator) are made with Institutions, the services of which are created on the basis of service infrastructure.

Along with that, in order to encourage a uniform understanding about government Institutions, nowadays a law about electronic services has been developed in order to:

Improve the quality and efficiency of public services;•

Define the rights and responsibilities of the owner of services, provider of services •and receiver of services;

Encourage the availability of services for private persons.•

Technical level

For some period of time, institutions have been developing the information systems of their own. They were formed over different periods of time and at different technical platforms, making the provision of cooperation a great challenge. Some institutions developed a direct integration between their systems, thus creating complex solutions suitable for only one particular task. Since 2005 Secretariat (from the moment of its establishment) has begun to comprehend the situation in the field of interoperability between public administration information systems.

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According to the mentioned analysis, a necessity has been expressed to create an international level “independent” intermediate layer able to provide institutions with possibility to exchange data in a platform-independent way. The yearn of institutions for permanence, their wish to preserve the exclusive rights over the content of the data and the way they will use that content only additionally complicate the issue. At the infrastructure level, it externalizes itself in the concept of State Information System Integrator. State Information System Integrator is a platform that provides the necessary tool set used for creating eServices as well as in other ways of solving integration system problems, ensuring maximum efficiency.

The solution foresees the provision of a centralized platform; nevertheless the specific solutions are developed and maintained by departments themselves. The principles of State Information System Integrator architecture are:

The usage of SOA principles and standards. The main standards of SOA are 1. BPEL, WSDL, XML etc;

Distributed functionality. State Information System Integrator only provides 2. standards, tools of area of focus, authentication infrastructure and standard functionality for creation of data exchange solutions of Institutions and eServices. The creation of data sources and respective IS-services by Institutions is decentralized, while on the other hand the usage of IS-services (creation of services, spreading and working) is centralized;

United environment – many participants. Each institution maintains its data 3. by itself (XML schemes, IS-services, classifiers, performs administering of users in its area), while the logics behind the services does not change and the major part of their performance is carried out in a centralized eService infrastructure;

Integrated state information system tries to use already existing state registers 4. and information systems data exchange infrastructure, if it exists;

Architecture has been introduced with the possibility to connect business 5. systems of departments or industry integrators to it.

The biggest advantage of an infrastructure is user friendly forms: unified form of gathering the necessary information (IS services, XML schemes) and the form of re-use. These forms provide a convenient usage of once created data in creation of other services. Here it is necessary to remember about organizational and semantic issues reviewed above. Even if a platform stores data in different re-use data folders, if they are used for creating a service separate agreements must be made: an agreement between the data provider and data receiver, an agreement about the order of data usage and an agreement about the division of responsibility.

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Nowadays the introduction of services holds the challenge to get the sides interested in universal eService infrastructure. It’s usage in Latvia is voluntary, which means the next stage should be the rewriting and development of the existing standards to develop and formalize the comprehensive national interoperability framework.

4. National interoperability is the necessary layer to achieve cross-border interoperability at European level and to successfully implement an internal Market without electronic barriers and the EC Service Directive. How were these aspects were handled within your national interoperability framework and the implementation of these 25 new ‘interministerial’ eServices? Can you provide some concrete examples to illustrate your answer?

Being aware of the meaning and influence of Directive 2006/123/EC on Services in the Internal Market (hereinafter Service Directive) influence on economy, the implementation of the Service Directive is acknowledged as one of the EU’s priorities. It will also be one of the major aims in the new Lisbon cycle, which was started in European Council in spring of this year.

That is why in Latvia in May of 2008 at the meeting of the Service Directive introduction working group the issue of choosing the appropriate Point of Single Contact model was reviewed. It is acknowledged that with introducing the Point of Single Contact principle according to the particular requirements regarding zero-cycle platform outlined in the Service Directive articles 6-8 it is possible to use www.latvija.lv – the existing state portal of Secretariat. The aim of existence of this portal is to completely coincide with the tasks brought by the Service Directive regarding the modernization of public administration and simplification of their work for the needs of citizens and businessmen. The aim of the portal is to provide the possibility for Latvian citizens and for citizens of other states to gain access together in one place and in a centralized way to eServices provided by different institutions.

That is the reason why at the end of May 2008 a suggestion was supported to pick out different identified services during the examination process for launching the pilot project for the approval of Point of Single Contact three-stage model. The Ministry of Economy in cooperation with industry ministries and Secretariat has developed the appropriate model of One-Stop agency the Point of Single Contact of which can be found at www.latvija.lv portal.

Today www.latvija.lv portal provides access to the internet resource section of state government Institutions as well as to the eServices section developed by Secretariat. The public services section is currently at the stage of development and is to be released in July 2008. The public service section offers its users a wide range of all the necessary information about the public services provided by the state and departments, the ways of asking for and receiving the services, the payments regarding the services and descriptions of the services. The above-mentioned information about the services will be available to users in the sections about real-life experiences or by using a special information search engine.

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The Three-stage model presents a differential approach to development of eServices, offering the first stage Point of single contact creation in case with simple services, while, on the other hand, the case of integrated services (a set of many interconnected or sequentially completed actions) – the third stage Point of Single Contact model.

At present pursuant to Electronic Documents Law (01.01.2003 with amending laws of: 6 May 2004; 17 August 2004; 28 October 2004; 25 April 22 June 2006; 24 May 2007) - qualified eSignature solution (authentification) we can use for:

State portal www.latvia.lv (3 eServices for now, 28 eServices till end of August, •2008);

State Revenue Service (log in Electronic Declaring System);•

Road Traffic Safety Directorate (my data in Register of Vehicle and Drivers: driver •licence, vehicle, penalty points);

The Procurement Monitoring Bureau (fill out a form);•

Electronic Procurement State Agency (log in Electronic Procurement System);•

Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (declare your place of residence •electronically);

NORDEA and Hansa Bank internet banking.•

Taking into account that the 25 pilot services project is close to being accomplished, right now it is impossible to clearly identify the lessons learnt.

5. Latvia has been an active EU Member State in regards to eGovernment (e.g. eInclusion, Interoperability, etc.). The EU is currently publishing the second version of its European Interoperability Framework and launching different pilots to successfully launch in the coming years pan-European eGovernment services (PEGs). In light of your recent achievements, what would be your recommendations in terms of Critical Success Factors to achieve pan-European eGovernment Services and implement successfully the EC Service Directive?

The solution of organizational issues and the improvement of legislative environment are considered as obligatory conditions. The absence of such conditions prevents the practical interoperability between information systems that belong to the majority of institutions.

Some short-term solutions serve for interagency unity while long-term solutions require changes in laws and different legislative acts.

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The Regulation No. 514 (12.07.2005) issued by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia, establishes rules on the technical and organizing requirements, which are basic for qualified certificate, trusted CPS, secure instruments for creation signature and also rules for procedure of verifying a secure electronic signature” foresee standards for secure Certificate service provider.

These standards are based on EU electronic signature standards ETSI TS 101 456 ETSI TC 102 023.

Latvia would like to accept qualified certificates for the purpose of identification as a temporary solution, until the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) ICT Policy Support Programme large scale pilot project STORK on e-ID delivers EU-wide interoperable e-IDs.

There has been a lot of work done in Latvia to introduce the pilot project at the national level. The further works are directed towards cooperation that goes beyond the frontiers – a very important step not only at national but also at the EU level. The usage of eServices outside the state’s borders is a great challenge.

One of the greatest achievements so far is the E-procurement system – one of the most modern in EU. The eProcurement system used in Latvia is developed after EU standards and criteria.

In 2007, there were 8 different trade catalogues available and 2369 trade nomenclature positions registered in Electronic procurement system (EPS). After making the general agreement in 2007, the number of EPS users (trade organizations) was 878 and the amount from the trade deals within EPS reached 4 472 511 LVL (6 363 809 EUR). According to the Electronic Procurement State Agency calculations the average volume of obtaining the goods in EPS was 7,7% in 2007.

There are also works being done to provide pan-European eGovernment Services.

Technological solution in the state is developed in a way to also ensure the provision of EServices for other citizens of the states belonging to the EU. All the national services are developed to meet the following requirements at pan-European level: Accessibility, Security, Privacy, Multilateral Solutions. There are also services developed that got Latvia into the network of United Europe, for instance, the created European Business Register.

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* Dusan KRICEJ is Deputy Director General at the Directorate for eGovernment and Administrative

Processes, Ministry of Public Administration. His previous posts were at the Ministry of Interior, as

an Adviser to the Minister and an IT Project Manager in industry. He was also a leader of the group

for the preparation of the Republic of Slovenia’s eGovernment Strategy from 2006 to 2010 and the

Action Plan.

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEW WITH

Dusan KRICEJ, Ministry of Public Administration, Slovenia

Dusan KRICEJ* Deputy Director General, Directorate for eGovernment and Administrative Processes, Ministry of Public Administration, Slovenia

Being an essential element to achieve Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGs) in Europe, cross-border interoperability has been identified by the European Union Member States as one of the 4 policy actions of the Lisbon eGovernment Ministerial Declaration (Sept 2007), which will drive eGovernment future developments and enable the creation of an Internal Market without electronic barriers. As the Slovenian EU Presidency is ending and passing the EU Presidency over to France, what important issues in terms of cross-border interoperability can be identified that will need further work during the French Presidency? Dusan KRICEJ, Deputy Director General, Directorate for eGovernment and Administrative Processes, Slovenian Ministry of Public Administration, is interviewed by Daniel VAN LERBERGHE, ERPT’s Editor-in-chief.

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iNTErviEW WiTh duSaN KriCEJ D. Kricej

1. The Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) led eGovernment into its next step in the relationship between Government and users, which is symbolised by making an “Alliance with users”. Such novel concept for eGovernment, launched in February 2008 at the eGovernment Conference in Brdo, Slovenia, is based on the idea that until now governmental strategy was oriented towards users. Therefore, the next step is to create an “Alliance with users”, where Government will be closer to the users, while at the same time, will be able to better identify the needs of both users and Government. The objective of this conference, organized by the Slovenian Ministry of Public Administration, was to join forces to create such alliance, as Slovenian Presidency policy priorities in eGovernment were important elements of it. Now that the Slovenian EU Presidency is ending and passing over to France, was this objective reached? What important issues in terms of cross-border interoperability have you identified that need further work during the next Presidency?

The title of the Conference “Alliance with Users” symbolises the tighter connection between users being citizens, business or government employees, and governments. It

was derived from the policy priorities of Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in eGovernment within which the Alliance with Users has been established.

Firstly, the Alliance was formed with the provision of interoperable solutions to citizens and businesses such as for example the project One Stop-Shop for companies which was upgraded based on users needs and users involvement. The alliance was also formed with government employees by enabling interoperable exchange of data between registers and IT systems in back office, which made their work easier, faster and more accurate.

Secondly, the alliance was strengthened by provision of the eGovernment applications supporting the reduction of administrative burden process, where users are directly involved in burden reduction and where their involvement has direct consequences.

Finally, the Alliance is based on inclusive eGovernment and eParticipation approaches, the former as a means to involve in eGovernment as wide public possible including socially deprivileged and the latter as a tool to incorporate users in policy creation and decision-making processes. Alliance with Users was thus presented as a concept which ensures that government is getting more popular, transparent, efficient, accountable, and of higher quality making users satisfied and government modern. We also made a step cross-border when we designed two pan-EU pilot services where we explored interoperability issues and challenges in practice. I am sure that cross border services will, in the future, also strengthen the alliance between Member States and EU citizens.

As regarding interoperability issues, our message is that all four interoperability layers (legal, organizational, semantical and technical) have to be addressed when developing cross-border services. It is important to note that legal and organisational issues are a prerequisite, which means that we have to focus on them at the most earliest stage. What would be interested to achieve in the coming years is to deploy cross border access to registers, which is very important for cross-border services to obtain personal and other data cross-border from authentic sources.

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The access to registers indeed is a huge legal and organizational challenge, as it has to respect data protection regulation and strict access control policies not to mention the diversity between Member States.

2. Cross-border interoperability, which is essential to establish Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGS), has been identified as one of the key policy action of the Slovenian Presidency. The Slovenian Ministry for Public Administration has been developing in collaboration with other ministries a PEGS’ prototype delivering 2 services to explore cross-border interoperability issues in a real-time environment.

The two services proposed were: a. Temporary Residence notices for Students;b. Registration service of a new company in Slovenia.

These services were being developed in collaboration with other Member States on a voluntary basis. Both services were launched as pilot services, which will later lead to production services. Can you briefly present these pilot services and which EU Member States took part in this ambitious project?

The cooperation with participating Member States Austria, Estonia, Finland and Portugal has been established already during the 4th Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Lisbon on bilateral meetings and other occasions. The choice of services was based on the survey carried out between citizens and business about the need for cross-border services by the European Commission’s IDABC programme in 2005. Among the top needs of citizens and businesses according to the survey were the two services we selected for piloting i.e.

Announcement of temporary residence for students;•

Registration of new single member company.•

We developed both pilot services in close cooperation with participating Member States and presented them at the eGovernment conference “Alliance with Users” held during the Slovenian Presidency to the EU Council on February the 11th 2008. Both pan-EU services are published and available to users at the testing English version of Slovenian eGovernment state portal. Services are available only to citizens who identify themselves by providing digital certificates issued in participating Member States.

Both services are composed of the preliminary procedure and the service itself. Preliminary procedure is common to both services. In the preliminary procedure the Personal identification number and Tax number are assigned to EU citizen and based on that EU citizen is registered in Slovenian registers (Personal data register, Tax register, translation table). After completing preliminary procedure both services are carried out according the specification of corresponding procedures of services themselves.

Active cooperation of participating Member States was needed only for the preliminary procedure, since for its execution we needed reliable personal data of the citizen.

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Thus we asked participating Member States to provide us with:

Information about digital certificate for authentication and national identifier;•

Personal data needed to enter MS citizen in Personal data register, Tax register •and Translation table.

We received from participating Member States information about the certificate and the identifier as well as information which personal data are kept in the certificate. The rest of personal data is entered by the citizen during the execution of the preliminary procedure.

The citizen is also requested to sign data he/she provides in order to ensure the integrity and authenticity of data. Upon receiving personal data EU citizen is entered in Slovenian official registers (Personal data register, Tax register and Translation table) and at the same time Personal identifier and Tax number are assigned to EU citizen. By assigning Personal identifier and Tax number the preliminary procedure is completed and EU citizen can proceed with either of the two services.

The next time EU citizen who wants to use the services the preliminary procedure is automatically skipped as he/she already has Slovenian identifiers.

3. What were the main issues in terms of cross-border interoperability that these pilot services have faced? Based on your experience, what are the critical success factors to establish PEGs across Europe and successfully implement European Commission Service Directive?

First of all, before we had designed the two services we inspected legal basis in Slovenia for their cross-border provision. We found out that for the change of address pilot there are certain legal barriers which may prevent the full use of this service. Namely according to certain interpretations of the Slovenian Law on Foreign citizens, EU citizen has to first enter Slovenia and then apply for the registration of residency provided he has to live in Slovenia for more than 3 months. This interpretation of the law may represent administrative burden for the realisation of the concept of eServices and has to be further inspected. As regards establishment of single member company service there were no such legal barriers detected and this service can be further developed to be ready for production.

It is also important to point out that within our pilot services we focused on Member States, which use digital certificates for the authentication in corresponding national services. It is however the case that other Member States use for the same services at national level other eID means such as for example just user name/password. So, to extend our pilot services to all Member States, we have to explore the authentication and identification of users by other types of eID.

This is also closely connected to national authentication policies and levels. Some Member States provide for example two levels of authentication such as strong and week authentication, while others provide more than two levels of authentication.

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The mapping between levels of authentication between Member States is crucial for provision of services to citizens from other Member States as we need to know if the authentication level provided by Member States citizen eID fulfils the authentication requirements imposed by our national eService.

The next very important issue is the possession of identifiers being the number, which uniquely identifies an EU citizen within EU. As this number does not exist and as not all Member States have their national identifiers each Member State has to solve the problem how it will uniquely identify EU citizen from another Member State.

Not at least it is also very important to point out that usually in eServices also personal data are handled. They could be either provided by the citizen or by the citizen’s home country.

In the first case the citizen has to guaranty the data are correct, while in the second case data can be retrieved from authentic sources such as national registers. The latter case is much more effective and also reduces burden from citizen, but its drawback is that access to other Member States register has not been regulated yet.

On the top of that it has to be noticed that for the successful implementation of the Services Directive it is also important to solve the EU-wide mutual recognition of eSignatures.

4. As stated by the European Commission: “Key enablers are the glue that binds eGovernment together. Public agencies need to coordinate their development of eGovernment services, and agree on basic principles. Interoperability of systems is fundamental, and electronic identities (eID) need to be recognised by all if they are to replace traditional paper ID cards”. eID is a key enabler to achieve an Internal Market without electronic barriers (e.g. EC Service Directive) and to rip the benefits of eGovernment. Slovenia is a consortium member of the STORK pilot project on Electronic Identity Management across Europe, co-financed by the European Commission. Can you identify the critical success factors in terms of interoperability you came across in the domain of Electronic Identity Management (eIDM)?

We agree very much that all EU public administration agencies and other institutions responsible for management of identities and identifiers have to cooperate strongly. Namely there are certain issues, which have to be solved by harmonization, especially as regards new common approaches and the rest of issue, which have to be solved by translation between available national solutions.

We, as national agencies, have to put on table which eID systems we have at national level.

We have to explore new trends and technological solutions available on the market regarding identity management and then we have to create together common specifications for interoperability between national eID’s. This is exactly the issue which has to be solved by the STORK consortium. And the beauty of the CIP large scale pilot concept is that it requires the cooperation between MS.

Since STORK consortium just had a kick-off meeting on 17.-18.6.2008 I am quite confident that all of us – members of STORK consortium will be able together to create and provide the solutions.

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The cooperation between Member States in STORK is strong, as we have common challenge and above all we have knowledge, all being key success factors for cross border IDM.

What could be considered as the critical success factor across Member States is the importance of cross-border services on the national agenda. Namely we are facing moderate use of eServices at national level, while the provision of services is considerably high. On the cross-border level this issue is even more critical. We thus need to find the challenge for EU citizens to increase their demand for cross-border services. 5. “Interoperability means working together - collaboration of systems, services and people. When people work together, they need to communicate and make agreements. They need to agree on the tasks they will perform and how they will exchange results. If their nationality is different, they also need to agree on the language in which they will communicate. Moreover, they need to overcome cultural and legal differences.” (IDABC, European Interoperability Framework 1.0). In your view, what will be the most challenging interoperability issues to be dealt with at European level in the coming years?

As you know the version 2.0 of the European Interoperability Framework was launched for public consultation in July 2008. This version is bringing some novelties such as general public service conceptual model etc. I think this model is a good starting point for the further direction of interoperability issues which have to be solved through the building blocks.

Once it will be adopted the European Interoperability Framework 2.0 will be published also in the form of the Communication from the Commission.

On top of that European Commission is going to launch also the European Interoperability Strategy: the umbrella document, which will provide strategic orientations of further interoperability activities.

The Commission invited CIO’s of all Member States to actively participate in the preparation of the Interoperability Strategy. This is extremely important because the strategy will receive the direct input from the national level where activities leading to implementation of cross-border interoperability are performed.

Interoperability issues, which will challenge us in the near future are definitely related to EU directives, which require cross border interoperability of eServices such as: Services Directive, Framework of Directives for eProcurement, Inspire Directive as well as eJustice and SEPA initiatives. There are numerous horizontal issues related to the implementation of the requirements from the mentioned directives such as interoperability of eSignatures, eDocuments, eArchives, eDelivery, eCatalogues, eInvoices, access to data kept in Member States registers (or at least verification with data from registers), etc. These issues have been considered in CIP ICT policy support programme for 2007 and 2008, as well as in other programmes. So my opinion is that there is plenty to do in the next years just to fulfil the imposed requirements. However we have to be aware that these activities will also put a big pressure on national agencies as cross-border activities represent addition to already planned national activities, so we have to put cross-border activities on national agenda on time.


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EIPA is the leading centre of European learning and development for the public sector. With over 25 years experience, EIPA is the place where people who deal with European affairs can learn in a multi-cultural environment benefiting from our unique combination of practical know-how and scientific excellence. With its headquarters in Maastricht, antennae in Luxembourg, Barcelona, Milan and Warsaw and a presence in Brussels, EIPA is alert to developments across Europe and responsive to your needs and interests. We help you to meet the challenges of Europe and the complexities of modern public management. CONSULTANCY EIPA can deliver tailor-made solutions for particular needs. EIPA provides consultancy to European public administrations and agencies in the areas of Quality Management, public sector performance, organisational and human resource development and in the management of European policies. In this context we can provide solutions ranging from coaching, conducting in-depth organisational and business process analyses, writing perceptive reports and providing key recommendations on a wide range of issues. We deliver strategic advice and partner client organisations in action-oriented business support programmes. We also draw on extensive networks of experts, consultants, public administration and EU experts and other education, training and research institutes and organisations.








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E D IT O R I A L D. van Lerberghe

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* Anabela PEDROSO is President of the Agency for Public Reform (AMA), Portugal, since 2006.

Anabela was in the UMIC - Knowledge Society Agency direction since 2005, being responsible for

the eGovernment area, leading projects such as the Citizen's Website, the Official Portuguese

Business Website, Enterprises Life Cycle, the Public Administration Interoperability Platform, etc.

Anabela was also responsible for the UMIC - Unity of Mission for Innovation and Knowledge

between 2003-2005. Anabela is also member of the Coordinate Council of Unity of Coordination for

the Services Modernization (UCMA), where she leads the Citizen's Card project.

ABSTRACT

The Portuguese Presidency of the European Union and

the Ministerial Declaration of Lisbon in Regard to Shared

Services and Transformational Government

Anabela PEDROSO*President of the Agency for Public Reform(AMA), Portugal

eGovernment, which is about to enter a new chapter of its short history, hasbrought us to consider a renewal of our commitment to our citizens.

After discovering the excitement of using ICT to spread information online in the90’s and after experiencing maturation of more personalised transactionaleServices, we are now facing the need to expand our perspective in providingreal citizen-centred services through a one-stop-shop model.

We have thus reached a moment of prospective reflection for the coming years.We need to figure out how to interconnect and better more online services, howto reduce bureaucracy and administrative burden, in a word, red-tape, whileimproving efficiency and effectiveness of public sector and increasing securityand privacy but also expanding transparency and openness to feedback fromcitizens.

Are we prepared for this cultural change in our relationship with citizens?

Are we ready to react positively to negative comments on our governance?


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ABSTRACT











4

*Morten MEYERHOFF NIELSEN is Consultant (BA Hon Pol. Sci, MA Int. Econ. Management) for the

Danish Technological Institute since 2007. He has more than 6 years experience in project

management including development and implementation of tender proposals, seminar and

conference organization.

He is the author and co-author of various publications, reviewer for the European Journal of

ePractice plus moderator and contributor to various eDemocracy and eParticipation blogs and

networks – [www.pep-net.eu and www.epractice.eu/community/eParticipation].

ABSTRACT

The Importance of Interoperability, Standards and

Electronic Identity Management to European

Participation and Democracy

Morten MEYERHOFF NIELSEN* Consultant, Danish Technological Institute, Denmark

Taking the 21st Bled eConference 15-18 June 2008 and the democratic participation process as its point of departure this article looks 3 diverse aspects of connected public service communities – i.e. eIDM (including eID), IOP and eParticipation highlighting their interconnectivity, in particular at a European level. In light of falling popular participation in the democratic process this article argue that ICT based tools can be successfully support a broadening and deepening of European democracy in a number of ways. This includes: • IOP and standards as building blocks for various services, participation and

democracy solutions;

• eID and eIDM enabling access various public services, participation and democracy solutions;

• Providing stakeholders such as politicians, the public administration, citizens,

business, civil society with channels and tools to directly participate in the democratic decision-making process such as elections, referenda’s as well as consultations, debates and communications on e.g. local and regional issues.


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ThE imPOrTaNCE Of iNTErOPErabiliTy, STaNdardS aNd ElECTrONiC idENTiTy maNagEmENT M. Meyerhoff Nielsen

Introduction

During the 21st Bled eConference 15-18 June 20081, EIPA (European Institute of Public Administration)2 and POLITECH INSTITUTE3 arrange a Roundtable on the topic

Connecting Public Services Communities4 with the aim of stimulating the learning and exchange of good practices on cross-border interoperability across the EU, as addressed by the Lisbon Ministerial Declaration and the EU Slovenian Presidency Agenda.

The Roundtable addressed a number of important aspects furthering the connectivity of communities to public services including:

Mapping the current state-of-play in Europe, critical success factors such as the •European Interoperability Framework (EIF 2.0) and key enablers such as electronic identity management and electronic identities (eIDM and eID);

Moving forward towards pan-European eGovernment high impact services and •how to achieve cross-border interoperability (IOP);

The impact of the EC Services Directive on eGovernment interoperability (IOP).•

While IOP and eIDM as key enablers of are important this is not necessarily in light of the participation process vis-à-vis democratic decision making and how this may be assisted by the former two. Looking at key enablers and the various types of public services being offered locally, regionally, nationally or even on a pan-European level (including cross-borders services), this paper will look at three diverse aspects of connected public service communities, eIDM (including eID), IOP and eParticipation - while highlighting their interconnectivity, in particular at a European level.

eParticipation

That ICT plays a significant role in providing citizens new and in some aspects better means of engaging in the political and democratic process is becoming increasingly evident.

Most experts see the active involvement of citizens and stakeholders as vital to a thriving democracy - even necessary for the successful transformation of modern societies.

ICT in this connection offers new channels and processes for participation, a potentially more inclusive involvement of citizens in the democratic decision making process, and the ability to compensate for certain democratic deficits. It can also lead to better legislation, to changes in the way regional, national and pan-European parliaments interact with citizens, and even produce new tools for democratic participation5.

The OECD outline three types of ICT supported participation6, which defines information provision, consultation, and active participation. The latter is described as a relation based on partnership with government, in which citizens actively engage in the policy-making process. It acknowledges a role for citizens in proposing policy options and shaping the political dialogue – although the responsibility for the final decision or policy formulation rests with government.

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In contrast to democratic outcomes, which are not always certain, there is little doubt that ICT offers possibilities to strengthen participatory discussion through virtual meetings not dependent on time, location or physical presence. Such technologies can therefore, in theory, be successfully used to broaden and deepen the democratic process, making it more transparent, inclusive and accessible.

That said a number of different terms overlap and/or are used in relation to eParticipation. eDemocracy is commonly used, but have compared to eParticipation interpreted very differently. eDemocracy may be described as the use of ICT to support the democratic decision-making processes, but have in some government circles become synonymous with eVoting (although voting is not the only mechanism whereby citizens can influence democratic decision making). eDemocracy is concerned with the use of information and communication technologies to engage citizens, support the democratic decision-making processes and strengthen representative democracy. The principal ICT mechanism is the Internet accessed through an increasing variety of channels, including PCs, both in the home and in pubic locations, mobile phones, and interactive digital TV. The democratic decision making processes can be divided into two main categories: one addressing the electoral process, including eVoting, and the other addressing citizen participation – whether electronic or not – in democratic decision-making7.

The definition of eParticipation can therefore be further differentiated from eDemocracy as the use of ICTs to support: information provision, ‘top-down’ engagement, i.e. government-led initiatives, and ‘ground-up’ efforts to empower citizens, civil society organisations and other democratically constituted groups to gain the support of their elected representatives8. Although effective communication of information must not be ignored as this is an essential component of effective engagement and empowerment.

The actual utilisation of the possibilities offered by new technologies at policy level pose a number of challenges at regional, national and pan-European level, with European institutions. In this regard the European Commission (EC) and the European Parliament (EP) have been addressing the issues of eParticipation and eDemocracy. This has been done through eParticipation, but also as part of its strategies and activities in areas such as eGovernment, eInclusion, cultural heritage and eLearning. Subsequent to the Lisbon Agenda the EC has helped fund research and initial deployment projects on eParticipation, notably within the eGovernment programme IDABC9, CIP ICT PSP10 and other services.

More specifically the EC is setting out a more defined path for its activities through initiatives such as the eParticipation Study Initiative11, the Pan-European eParticipation Network (PEP-NET)12, the Momentum Project13 and not least the communication campaign ‘e-Inclusion: Be part of it!’,14 which aim to contribute with valuable insights and recommendations. In addition initiatives such as the 2006 Riga eInclusion Conference15, the 2007 Ministerial Declaration on eInclusion16, the 21st Bled eConference on Overcoming Boundaries through Multi-Channel Interaction17 and upcoming events such as the 2008 Vienna eInclusion Ministerial Conference, the eInclusion Awards18 as well as the eDemocracy Awards19 are all play a role in strengthening participation and inclusion.

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European governments at all levels are striving to broaden and deepening democracy by delivering a more open and transparent decision-making process though the use of using innovative ICT to ease communication between public administrations, politicians and civil society. There is a sense of public disengaged from formal political processes, such as voting, party involvement and following political news; and this disengagement reflects a crisis of public trust in governments and citizens’ belief that they in their own capacity cannot effectively influence public affairs. Secondly, there is a widespread belief that the Internet and other digital technologies can be used to broaden and deepen the democratic process, making it more transparent, inclusive and accessible.

The growing apathy vis-à-vis formal political processes does little to change current political policies but does risk undermining current models of representative democracy in Europe.

When elected representatives are chosen by a minority of the electorate, this brings into question the legitimacy of political decision-makers and the process itself. In a number of European countries where voting is not obligatory there has been a growing decline in the number of people willing to turn out and vote in local, regional, national and European level of elections. Since the EP first elected directly in 1979 voter turnout has fallen with an average 2-3% every five years across Europe. The turnout of the 2004 elections followed a similar downward trend with the average turnout in Portugal of approximately 37.8%, and an even lower 16.96% in Slovakia20.

The core principle of representative democracy is the participation of citizens as demonstrated by their voting in elections, implying that turnout at elections is not the only indicator of apathy and dissatisfaction. A recent survey on political engagement undertaken in the UK indicated that most adults do not feel they know much about politics, with only 14% saying that they are politically active. The most common reason quoted for not voting is that politicians do not listen, thus leading to a situation where citizens are feeling a loss of ownership in the democratic process and where the ‘representativeness’ of elected assemblies is put into question. It is therefore clear from the falling election turnout and similar indicators that the traditional democratic processes do not effectively engage citizens leading to many experts and raise the alarm of a serious democratic deficit across Europe.

The potential for ICT to increase political participation and address the growing democratic deficit across Europe has long been the subject of academic debate21. However only recently has there been sufficient practical design and application of ICT to support democracy that this ‘potential’ could be considered within a real-world context22.

The arrival of more sophisticated information systems and software solutions has produced a growing community of research and practice that is investigating the manners in which such solutions may help re-engage people with the democratic process. The objective is to make decision-making more transparent, inclusive and accessible and to provide citizens with the opportunities and tools to involved in the political processes – thus offering opportunities for more participatory representative democracy.

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Interoperability

The introduction of value-added services using ICT has to some extent proven its potential.

This potential includes the improvement of internal processes in public sector organisations, but also for the benefit of those businesses and citizens, which interact with these in relation to services or as part of the decision-making process. However, the implementation and provision of public sector eServices raise a number of questions arise including which services to implement and how as well as whether these services should be autonomous or subsidiary at a local, regional, national pan-European level. The pan-European and cross-border aspects in particular raise the question of cost of market fragmentation and what services need to be interoperable, and at what level services should be integrated.

Interoperability must therefore be considered as key if stakeholders are to reap the benefits of increased efficiency and effectiveness, feel part of the information society, and not least be able to participate in the decision-making and the political process.23

While a number of definitions of IOP exists, the aspects introduced by the EIF,24 and defined in a broader sense by the Modinis Study on Interoperability at Local and Regional Level (Modinis) will be used in this paper, namely:

Technical interoperability “…covers the technical issues of linking computer •systems and services” as defined by EIF;

Semantic interoperability ensures that “…the precise meaning of exchanged •information is understandable by any other application that was not initially developed for this purpose. Semantic interoperability enables systems to combine received information with other information resources and to process it in a meaningful manner” which is also in line with the EIF definition;

Organisational interoperability in EIF is concerned with “…defining business •processes and bringing about the collaboration of administrations that wish to exchange information and may have different internal structures and processes, as well as aspects related to requirements of the user community.” For the purpose of the Modinis Study, the scope of organisational interoperability has been broaden to also cover the political, legal and structural conditions that are relevant to the development and use of interoperable applications. This additional set of aspects “Broader organisational interoperability aspects”. To distinguish it from the narrower set included in EIF, the latter may be titled “Service/process-related interoperability aspects”;25

Governance interoperability is concerned with the institutional content in which •IOP is to be achieved. This includes influences such as organisation and management traditions as shaped by culture, language, history, geography, skills and competences, innovation and availability of economic resources.

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While each of the above four aspects of IPO are important for the day-to-day functioning public administrations and in particular eGovernment services solutions it is the organisational and governance aspects which are of particular interest to popular participation.

Governance IOP is as stated influenced by the specific institutional content and milieu in which it operates including the democratic and participatory process as well as the type of suitable solution. These are in turn influenced by aspects such as traditions of organisation and management shaped by culture, language, history, geography, skills and competences, innovation and availability of economic resources. Examples of these various administrative traditions and cultures include four main European concepts that is:

Administration-centred tradition like the French Conseil d’État;•

Individual-centred tradition illustrated by the Anglo-Saxon and US systems;•

Legislator-centred tradition such as the German Rechtsstat;•

Ombudsman-centred tradition as implemented in the Scandinavian countries.• 26

Naturally technical and semantic of IOP are also important as they form the technical basis on which ICT supported tools promoting and deepening the democratic process can be built. This includes solutions supporting participation and various forms of stakeholder networking and organisations as well as eVoting.

To optimisation existing and future ICT system development to harness increase efficiency and productivity though cooperation, the interchange of data though, for example, the minimisation of double entries and work or the adoption of common standards and architecture IOP is essential. The importance of IOP should thus be seen the manifestation of the need for systems to communicate and exchange data in a meaningful way – no matter whether IOP, standards and architecture is assisted though open standards systems or proprietary solutions, but also to increase the transparency of public administrations and increase public value creation.27

This importance is also evident from the high priority given to eGovernment actions in the eEurope 2005 Action Plan and i2010. Also, at the Ministerial Conference held in Como in July 2003, ministers recognised that the “Cooperation required to develop pan-European services depends in part on the interoperability of information and communication systems used at all levels of government”, with the resulting eGovernment Communication28 identifying the need for the development of an interoperability framework to support the delivery of eGovernment services to citizens and enterprises in a cost efficient and transparent manner.

The importance of interoperability as a key enabler becomes even more apparent when its absence is considered. Both the Modinis Study on Interoperability at Regional and Local Level29 and the European eGovernment Awards 2007 state-of-the-art reports30 emphasised this point when highlighting that the lack of mutual recognised and interoperable ID cards lead to citizens inability to access information and integrated public services.

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The users are as a result forced to contact different public authorities for different services.

This in turn limits mobility of otherwise mobile citizen and businesses as the absence of IOP results in de facto technological enclaves at all levels of public administration, unnecessarily limiting the value and impact of information systems and service provision, leading to a less transparent and efficient system – and in extreme situations encroaches on peoples mobility and access to public sector services as encouraged by the internal markets three freedoms (free movement of labour, capital, goods and services).31

This focus on IOP and standards as key enablers used by communities for public sector service provision is also highlighted by N. Huijboom and M. Meyerhoff Nielsen in the “European eGovernment 2005-2007: Taking stock of good practice and progress towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan”.32 In particular the good reception of EIF 1.0 in 2004 and the subsequent EIF 2.0 upgrade in 2008 has also encouraged Member States to initiate or adopt IOP frameworks and guidelines. As result a number of standards-based frameworks for public sector institutions with the objective to improve the flexibility and efficiency of ICT enabled government are in place and thus eServices and in some cases also cater for various forms of electronic debate, participation, consultation, organisation and voting. Examples of different Member State IOP and standards include: the Danish governments Interoperability Framework33 and the Offenlig Information Online (OIO – Public Information Online) Catalogue34; the Dutch governments catalogue Open Standardaarden en Open Source Software voor de Overheid (OSOSS – Open Standards and Open Source Software in Government)35; the German Standards und Architekturen in eGovernment Anwendungen (SAGA – Standard and Architecture for eGovernment use) framework36, and; the UK governments E-government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) and Technical Standards Catalogue (TSC).37

The importance of IOP also comes through in the results of the 2007 National Progress Reports on the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan European38 which showed that the large majority of Member States have formulated a policy on IOP-related topics, including 71% having a policy on open standards, 78% had an interoperability policy and 53% an open source policy.39

Public sector ICT projects, whether back- or front-office orientated, offer the opportunity to connect communities with political and public sector decision makers and services in an efficient and productive manner but to reap the full benefits of ICT interoperability must be insured. The enhancement of interoperability at national and pan-European level is the focus of e.g. the large scale eID and eProcurement pilot projects run under the CIP ICT PSP,40 - i.e. STORK (Secure idenTity acrOss boRders linked)41 and PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line).42A common approach and the facilitation of mutual recognition and trust in different standards such as a European clearinghouse or portal facilitating accessibility to current and trusted information is another potential solution to the interoperability issue. An additional option for greater IOP may be the joint development and take-up of standards such as the STORK, PEPPOL or the NES UBL.43

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What these initiatives have in common is that they all aim at the standardisation the various technical components and frameworks to ensure that the successful interaction between networked systems is ensured.

That said, the importance and potential benefits of IOP are not only the ability to transfer and exchange data, documents and information in a fast and efficient manner, in creating a foundation on which eServices, eParticipation and eDemocracy solutions can be build, thus ensuring that communities have an additional channel of access.

That said, no matter the option chosen to pursue it must from the onset take into account, legislative and regulatory aspects, existing process and organisational structures and the requirements and not least the needs and wishes of the end-user whether citizens, business or civil servants – e.g. through a process of consultation.

Electronic identity management and electronic identities

While eID’s makes possible various forms of electronic voting and referenda, the availability of eID does not directly influence the level of participation. Various types of eID’s for e.g. citizens, businesses or employees (public or private sector) nevertheless constitutes an important building block enabling citizens and business to access public services and may thus be argued to have an impact , albeit indirect, on popular opinion vis-à-vis a given government and the public sector.

That said, EU Member States have agreed that secure and convenient electronic identification is not merely a national, but also a pan-European, concern, and that safe access to services should be available EU-wide. European governments have therefore made the commitment to facilitate the development of pan-Europe eIDM by establishing secure systems for the mutual recognition of national electronic identities for public authority websites and services. This is illustrated by e.g. the STORK initiative and the eGovernment Action Plan foresees full implementation by 2010.44 In addition Member States have signed up to the eID Timeline to ensure that national activities and developments are aligned in regard to the provision of identity services across borders and sectors.45

In most countries, a wide variety of different eIDM systems are being developed and deployed, resulting in significant fragmentation and a user-unfriendly environment, as well as leading to unnecessary administrative burden for citizens and businesses. Therefore, in several countries, policy has been adopted to overcome fragmentation and develop one eIDM solution for all government services, thus making access to 2nd and 3rd generation ICT supported services easier plus creating value and chose for the individual. It may also be argued that less fragmentation increases the logical structure of public sector services and thus transparency.

The EC eID Timeline therefore aims at identifying a number of key building blocks to facilitate the development of a pan-European eIDM system. It sets out a number of specific milestones in order to achieve the final objective of “secure means of electronic identification (eID) that maximise user convenience while respecting data protection regulations” by 2010.

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This includes the development of authentication models and levels plus the definition of terminology and eID by 2007. Although provisional participating Member States sign up to the implementation of a common eID framework for the equal treatment of national solutions by 2008, and the development of the required role management, personal data ownership models and a format for federated management to ensure mutual recognition of national European eID by 2010. The convenience and data protection is particular important for user take-up and trust, but also in ensuring that e.g. eVoting remain confidential where required by legislation and unwarranted access is impossible.

In order to achieve the ambition as expressed in the eGovernment Action Plan for 2010, the EC published a roadmap in 2006 that identifies concrete building blocks, specific milestones, and actions that need to be undertaken. As already mentioned one of the key principles for a pan-European eIDM system is that any pan-European eIDM system must be secure, implement the necessary safeguards to protect the privacy of the user and/or data owner (through e.g. employee, citizen or business eID’s), and allow its usage to be aligned with local interest and sensitivities. In order to reach consensus between the Member States on a common eIDM terminology and to guarantee conceptual/semantic IOP, each Member State should:

Be able to identify users within its borders, if it wishes to allow them access to •eIDM services abroad;

Issue the means to each user to identify and authenticate him/herself electronically, •if it wishes to allow him/her access to benefits from eIDM abroad;

Provide the means to manage the competencies of the identified users within its •borders, insofar as these authorisations are not subject to approval by or on the authority of another Member State;

Support online validation mechanisms of identities, competencies and mandates if •it wishes to provide eIDM services.

In addition the CIP ICT PSP includes as a specific objective the implementation of an EU wide IOP system for the recognition of eID and authentication which will enable citizens, business and public administrations to use their national electronic identities in any Member State. Mutual recognition and IOP of electronic documents is another focus for which the development of policies, practices and standards to the authentication, accessibility and long term archiving of eDocuments is particularly emphasised. It will therefore be of particular interest to follow eIDM and procurement initiatives such as STORK, the current CEN/ISSS workshops on a common eProcurement standard or PEPPOL project as they are being developed and implemented.46 Not only as these will uncover specific issues related to IOP and standards, but it will be of particular interest to see how, in what ways and in relation to what type of services citizens and business will utilise these once implemented.

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eIDM is not only defined on a European level, but also in terms of national policy. The 2007 National Progress Reports on the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan European47 show that a majority of Member States have formulated a policy on eIDM-related topics, including 92% having an eIDM policy and 57% an eDocument policy.48

Although large scale popular participation may not be relevant when it comes to the development and implementation of eID’s and eIDM, stakeholders should nevertheless be consulted, e.g. on existing and future industry standards.

It is nonetheless important in relation to the type of services for which a given eID solution is utilised, whether there is a popular demand a given service and in ensuring that privacy, data protection, security and confidentiality of e.g. eVote’s and referenda. The need for consultation is illustrated by the wide variety of different eIDM systems currently being developed and deployed – a variety of solutions resulting in significant fragmentation and a less then user-friendly environment, as well as administrative burden for citizens and businesses, which could potentially have been avoided. Therefore, policy has been adopted in a number of countries in order to overcome fragmentation and develop one eIDM solution for all government services as highlighted in a number of the 2007 National Progress Reports on the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan.

Conclusion

As stated in the being of this article, participation in the democratic process has in Europe been in general decline in the last decades. The emergence of ICT based tools may as outlined offer a way to successfully reverse this trend by supporting a broadening and deepening of European democracy.

Specifically, IOP and standards act as building blocks for various online services, participation and consultation tools supporting political debates, public section decision-making as well as the democracy process though e.g. specific eVoting, debate and information solutions.

eID and eIDM on the other hand enabling access to increasingly sophisticated electronic government services, participation, consultation and democracy solutions. The combination of standards, IOP and eIDM ensure that public sector back-offices may transfer data successfully, increase efficiency of organisations and offer the potential to increase accessibility and the perceived quality of public administration service provision. In addition, the combination of standards, IOP and eIDM makes it possible to successfully protect data, privacy and confidentiality of information held within the public sector on e.g. citizens and business. The use of electronic identifiers like civil servant (or employer), citizen and business eID’s in also enable increased control (internal and external) and accessibility to data thus avoiding a potential Orwellian 1984 Big Brother situation to arise.

IOP, standards, eID and eIDM in other words provide the foundation on which stakeholders such as politicians, the public administration, citizens, business, civil society can develop new channels and tools to directly participate in the democratic decision-making process such as elections, referenda’s as well as various forms of consultations, debates and communications on e.g. local and regional issues.

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References

1 2008 Bled eConference: http://bledconference.org2 EIPA: http://www.eipa.eu3 2008 Bled eConference: http://bledconference.org4 bid: http://bledconference.org/Connecting_Public_Services_Communities.html5 Danish Technological Institute et al (2007) Study and supply of services on the development of

eParticipation in the EU NOT PUBLISHED, Århus, p. 9 6 OECD (2001). Citizens as Partners: Information, consultation and public participation in policy-

making: OECD, Paris7 Macintosh, A. (2004) ‘Characterizing E-Participation in Policy-Making’. In the Proceedings of

the Thirty-Seventh Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-37), January 5 – 8, 2004, Big Island, Hawaii.

8 Macintosh, A., Coleman, S., and Lalljee, M.; (2005) E-Methods for Public Engagement: Helping Local Authorities communicate with citizens. Published by Bristol City Council for The Local eDemocracy National Project

9 IDABCE: http://europa.eu.int/idabc10 DG Information Society and Media: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/

index_en.htm11 eParticipation Study: http://www.european-participation.eu http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment_research/eparticipation/index_

en.htm12 PEP-NET: http://www.pep-net.eu 13 Momentum: http://www.ep-momentum.eu14 DG Information Society, eInclusion: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/

bepartofit/index_en.htm15 2006 Riga eInclusion Conference: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/ict_riga_2006/

index_en.htm16 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/einclusion_lisbon/index_en.htm17 2008 Bled eConference: http://bledconference.org18 European eInclusion Awards 2008: http://www.e-inclusionawards.eu/19 eDemocracy Forum: http://www.edemocracy-forum.com/2008/07/european-edemoc.html20 http://www.elections2004.eu.int/ep-lection/sites/en/results1306/turnout_ep/index.html 21 Barber, B. (1984). Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. Berkeley: University of

California Press. 22 Coleman, S. and Gøtze, (2001) J. Bowling Together: Online Public Engagement in Policy

Deliberation. London: Hansard Society, 2001, available at http://bowlingtogether.net/bowlingtogether.pdf

23 Millard, J. ed. (2007) European eGovernment 2005-2007: Taking stock of good practice and progress towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, European Commission, Brussels, September 2007

24 IDABC (2004), European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services. European Communities, Luxembourg

25 Interoperability at Local and Regional Level, Modinis Study on Interoperability (November 2005), D2.3: Interoperability Study version 2, Thesaloniki, pp. 15-16

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ThE imPOrTaNCE Of iNTErOPErabiliTy, STaNdardS aNd ElECTrONiC idENTiTy maNagEmENT M. Meyerhoff Nielsenw

26 Presentation by M. Meyerhoff Nielsen, Danish Technological Institute, 25 September 2007, at European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) and National Centre for Public Administration and Local Government (EKDDA) Seminar, Athens, Greece

27 Meyerhoff Nielsen, M. (2006) Critical success factors to IOP, Athens, 6 December 200628 European Commission (2003) The role of eGovernment for Europe’s future Communication from

the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Brussels, 26.9.2003, COM(2003) 567 Final.

29 MODINIS (2007) Study on Interoperability at Local and Regional Level, 20 April 2007: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment_research/doc/interop_study.pdf

30 Huijboom, N. and Meyerhoff Nielsen, M. Putting key enablers in place in Millard, J. ed. (2007) European eGovernment 2005-2007: Taking stock of good practice and progress towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, European Commission, Brussels, September 2007

31 Ibid. pp. 53-5632 Ibid. pp. 53-6033 The Interoperability Framework: http://standarder.oio.dk/English/34 Public Online Information (OIO) Catalogue: http://www.oio.dk/standarder/OIO-kataloget35 OSOSS: http://www.ososs.nl/index.jsp?alias=english36 Standard and Architecture for eGovernment use (SAGA): http://www.kbst.bund.de/saga37 E-Gif: http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/egif.asp38 National Progress Reports on the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, submitted to the EC in May

2007 Millard, J. ed. (2007) European eGovernment 2005-2007: Taking stock of good practice and

progress towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, European Commission, Brussels, September 2007

39 Ibid.40 CIP PSP ICT: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/index_en.htm41 STORK: http://www.eid-stork.eu42 PEPOL: http://www.peppol.eu/43 NES: http://www.nesubl.eu/44 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment_research/doc/eidm_roadmap_

paper.pdf.45 Huijboom, N. and Meyerhoff Nielsen, M. Putting key enablers in place in Millard, J. ed. (2007)

European eGovernment 2005-2007: Taking stock of good practice and progress towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, European Commission, Brussels, September 2007, pp 53-60

46 Ibid, pp. 6047 National Progress Reports on the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, submitted to the EC in May

2007 Millard, J. ed. (2007) European eGovernment 2005-2007: Taking stock of good practice and

progress towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, European Commission DG INFSO, Brussels

48 Ibid.


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4








ABSTRACT











4








ABSTRACT











4

*Constantijn VAN ORANJE has master degrees in Law from Leiden University (1995) and in

Business Administration from INSEAD at Fontainebleau (2000). He is Head of the Information Policy

and Economics team at RAND Europe. Mr. Van Oranje currently also advises the Dutch Foreign

Ministry on European communication strategy (since 2003).

**Rifka WEERHUIZEN is senior researcher at UNU-MERIT, a research institute in the area of

innovation and economic development from the University Maastricht and the United Nations

University. She has an MA in History and a PhD in Economics.

ABSTRACT

LINKING UP eGOVERNMENT, BUILDING A DIGITAL EUROPE:

Drivers, Obstacles and Policy Options for the

Development of Pan-European eGovernment Services

Constantijn VAN ORANJE*

Research Leader, Head of Information Policy & Economics, RAND Europe, Belgium

Rifka WEEHUIZEN** Senior Researcher, UNU-MERIT The Netherlands

eGovernment offers unique possibilities for linking up public administrations of Member States across the borders, thus reducing the costs of cross-border activity for citizens and businesses, and creating a European public space while maintaining Member State authority and respecting the principle of subsidiarity. In this article, based on an interactive workshop with practitioners and policy-makers, the developments in the area of cross-border eGovernment and pan-European eGovernment (PEGS) are described (forms, pathways, dynamics), and the drivers, obstacles and policy options for facilitating and stimulating cross-border eGovernment applications are discussed.


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liNKiNg uP egOvErNmENT, buildiNg a digiTal EurOPE C. Van Oranje - R. Weerhuizen

The workshop ‘Linking up eGovernment, Building a digital Europe’ presented concrete issues involving the development of Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGS).

Motivating factors, incentives, enablers and obstacles to this development were presented and discussed, as well as solutions and the possible role of the Commission in these.

The interest of Member State policy-makers and of practitioners in PEGS is growing.

As European cooperation and integration deepens in all policy areas, the awareness of (administrative) barriers to this cooperation and integration is increasing ; simply because feeling those barriers in practice makes actors more aware of them. In addition, the policy area itself is becoming more mature; PEGS (or more in general the need of cross-border cooperation of public services in Europe) have been on policy agendas for several years now and are gaining momentum as an instrument for strengthening the internal market and providing better services to the citizens of the EU.

Consequently, the discussion is becoming richer, more sophisticated, visionary and future-oriented. From all cases presented and the discussions in the breakout groups a few broad conclusions can be drawn. The Commission plays an important role in different phases of PEGS development.

Actors in the area of PEGS (e.g. practitioners in the public and private sector, policy-makers at the national and regional level) seek more hands-on involvement of the Commission, especially in setting the policy framework and supporting knowledge management and good practice exchange.

Financial support from the Commission is important, especially in the initial phase of a project.

However, dependency on EC funding must be avoided to ensure financial sustainability and to avoid distortion; the presence of funding may elicit projects that are not sufficiently need-based. Therefore it is essential to include strong partners that are able to provide or generate funding independent of the Commission, and to ensure that business models have a robust, sustainable financial basis. The investment of ‘own money’ is important, as this communicates belief in the undertaking, it creates a sense of ‘ownership’, and it signals a real need for this service. All these factors are important in predicting successfulness of a PEGS.

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Enabling/Facilitating Initiating/Executing

Political E.g. Writing a Green Paper in order to create and increase awareness, such as the Green Paper on mortgage markets which helped EULIS

E.g. Having ministers of MS sign a Ministerial Declaration in which they commit themselves to make PEGS, example is some articles of the Service Directive

E.g. Being a champion of PEGS, both in words (policy papers, speeches) and in practice (initiating Commission-led PEGS),

Financial E.g. Seed funding for development of PEGS, such as eTEN in the case of Netc@rds.

E.g. Providing a budget for a Commission-based PEGS, such as SOLVIT

Technical E.g. Creating standards for service provision, technical but also organizational (templates, procedures) and terminology; such as European eID

Developing the technical capabilities needed for the Commission to run a PEGS

Organizational E.g. Creating an organizational structure for Information brokering, knowledge management, best practice exchange of PEGS, creating PEGS community in which practitioners from the public and the private sector and policy-makers from different MS can identify each other, earn from each other and if possible can start to cooperate to develop a PEGS; think of ePractice.eu “plus”

E.g. Getting different DGs of the relevant policy areas together to together facilitate a PEGS (such as in the area of eJustice

E.g. Making the public sector of the different MS more transparent so actors know where to look for potential partners in other MS to cooperate with for PEGS development

E.g. Creating an organization (front-office and back-office) to manage the PEGS (e.g. Your Europe for mobility of researchers);

E.g. Creating an organi-zational structure in, and together with, MS actors such as in the case of SOLVIT

Legal E.g. Stimulate changes in laws in MS which make for example sharing of information legal.E.g. Making sure that European legislation is conducive to PEGS development rather than a barrier

E.g. Providing a legal basis for a Commission-led PEGS, including ways for the citizen to have influence and if he is not content, to complain, if needed formally

Table 1. The possible roles of the European Commission

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Pathways of PEGS development

Typically, PEGS development process is bottom-up, step-by-step and gradual; it is characterized by learning-by-doing. Generally there are a small number of ‘first movers’, which can be practitioners from the public sector (e.g. the public land registration service organizations in a few Member States, such as the Kadaster in the Netherlands which was one of the actors to start up EULIS) and from the private sector (e.g. health insurance companies in different Member States, which are part of the consortium that is responsible for Netc@rds.

These ‘first movers’ form a partnership, creating critical mass in terms of organization and funding to start a PEGS. The ‘first movers’ of different Member States often already are in contact with each other and to some extent know each other, so there is an initial perception of having a common goal, and an initial amount of trust, which has emerged from earlier interaction and which is increased through further interaction. To some extent this interaction needs to be personal, especially in the beginning; people who have met in person often cooperate much better, the generated trust functions as oil in the PEGS-machine.

An appropriately inclusive and agile governance structure needs to be set up, to enable the development of trust among stakeholders and to establish the right kind of decision-making capacity. Typically, the structure of current PEGS consortia is open, allowing other actors from other Member States to join, if they fulfil certain conditions such as the presence of a developed eService in the policy area in the Member State that wants to join. These conditions determine to some extent inclusion and exclusion but only temporarily; if a Member State is not e-mature enough in a certain policy area, the Member State can first further develop at its own speed and in accordance with its own priorities, and then join when it is ready.

The prospective of joining a European level eService may stimulate maturation of eGovernment in certain policy areas in Member States, which can be an important benefit; it is in line with the ‘attractor’ strategy (as opposed to ‘obligation strategy’) of Europe, in which Member States develop activities because they see the value of it not because they have to. While the ‘attractor strategy’ has its limits, it seems especially appropriate and effective in the area of eGovernment, given factors such as the autonomy of Member States over their own public sector, the institutional variety of the public sector of different Member States, and the differences in ‘readiness’ of different Member States and policy areas.

The group of ‘first movers’ explore and experiment with organizational and technical options, identifying barriers as they go along; and creating solutions for circumventing of removing them. It is crucial that their experiences are made explicit so that they themselves but also others can maximally learn from them – i.e in the same policy area wanting to join, and those seeking to develop a PEGS in their own policy area. While different policy areas have different structures, dynamics, actors and issues, nevertheless PEGS-developers in other policy areas can learn important lessons from the ‘first movers’.

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The EUReGOV project aims to do just that. However, it should be done on a structural basis, and there is an important role for the Commission to actively stimulate codification of experiences and actively facilitate learning.

The main organizational principle of PEGS currently is the ‘portal structure’. Portals are effective because they enable connecting services in different Member States and of different actors, while in principle leaving the underlying institutional diversity intact. This is important, because of the autonomy of Member States in the area of the public sector, but also because the institutional diversity would act as a major barrier if a PEGS would require extensive harmonization of practices. While portals are not the solution to everything, and while some basis elements of technical, organizational and semantic interoperability are necessary or at the very least highly desirable in order to really develop an effective PEGS, the portal approach seems to work sufficiently well in the current PEGS that are in place or in full development. The expectation is that the portal structure will increase interaction between public service providers in different Member States, and that they may lead over time to a certain degree of convergence, if only because public sector organizations may all get into contact with the same best practices in their area, which they will try to emulate.

The development strategy for PEGS should combine quick wins for short term momentum and visibility, while establishing a roadmap for addressing more complex issues in mid- to long-term. Quick wins can be obtained for example by focusing on relatively easy target groups who are likely to act as a ‘early adopters’ of PEGS. Examples are citizens and organizations who are “e-ready”, already making extensive use of information and communication technology, and which have a clear need for cross-border eGovernment – think of organizations in the justice system (crime knows no borders) and of mobile citizens.

The workshop suggests a number of specific development approaches, providing solutions to obstacles and enhancing incentives and enablers of PEGS. These are listed in the report of the break out sessions.

Drivers of PEGS development:

The most important driver of PEGs development is the perception of a clear, obvious, important policy-need for a cross-border dimension in public service provision in a certain area. The shared perception of a policy need works as apowerful binding “glue” between different organizations (public and private) in different Member States. Obvious policy-needs with a cross-border dimension are pollution, crime, traffic (e.g. European eJustice Portal, the Schengen Informations System II, EUCARIS car registration, etc.). Other policy needs, such as cross-border health care and creating a European mortgage market are less immediately urgent but no less important; they are related to the deepening of the internal market in order to gain economies of scale and scope at the European level rather than the national level.

Another driver is the wish or necessity to achieve more effective service provision and reducing administrative burden, both the burden for public service providers and for citizens.

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Public service providers want to increase the efficiency of their back-offices and need to implement a cross-border dimension to achieve this, for example when (increasingly) dealing with citizens or businesses from other Member States who live, study, work, retire, produce en consume in a Member State which is not their own. Public service providers may need to check the credit history of individuals and firms to make sure they do not have big debts in other Member States; they may need to verify credentials such as diploma’s; they may need health information about medical treatment in the past, or they need to figure out whether a person receives social benefits or pays taxes in another Member State. These issues currently take a lot of time and resources, if they are done at all.

As to the citizens and firms, especially the mobile citizen and firm currently are confronted with a bewildering administrative burden, having a to deal with all kinds of public service providers in different policy areas and in different Member States, Integration of service provision, including some degree of integration across the borders of Member States, can greatly reduce this administrative burden for citizens and firms, thereby taking away a barrier for mobility and thus contributing to deepening of the internal market. As the needs of citizens and business change, public service provision should change along in order to fulfil its mission, provision of services to the public. The first step is to make public service provision in other MS more transparent and accessible, a next step lies in the area of cooperation of service providers, and in the future in some areas perhaps integration of service provision.

At a deeper level there are more fundamental, “existential” motives: the need to continuously show added value to the tax payer (citizens, firms) in order to strengthen legitimacy; the intrinsic, real desire to serve citizens as well as possible, out of a sense of “public mission”, the inherent desire to “make things better”; the status associated with having a “best practice” – practitioners and policy-makers are proud of their achievements and like to show it to others; and the drive to be of value to others by sharing knowledge, providing assistance, and cooperating. This is also why the presence of a “real policy need” is an important driver: practitioners and policy-makers are to considerable extent driven by intrinsic motives, such as a sense of justice (thus cooperation in the area of crime), the normative disapproval of waste of time and resources (thus aiming for more efficiency), an ideal of fairness (thus cross-border cooperation in the area of social benefits in order to prevent misuse of the system), or the respect for the environment (thus cross-border cooperation in the area of pollution).

Pressure of public opinion and the media act as driver because these signal “real needs” and help to overcome institutional inertia preventing innovations such as cross-border cooperation in public service privation. Direct pressure by citizens in specific policy areas is important, because the indirect way of informing the government about what to do (e.g via elections) are often too weak and slow for real concrete change. It is the task of citizens and groups of citizens (firms, civil society organizations, ombudsman) to give feedback to public service providers about how they are doing (providing a disciplining force) and whether they are doing the right thing (providing signals about the needed direction of change). It is the responsibility of public service providers to respond to this pressure in an adequate way.

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Enabling factors for PEGS development:

Some degree of trust and a shared frame of reference between partner institutions and participating Member States are important conditions for successful PEGS development.

In addition, trust of the users in the service providers is important for uptake and diffusion.

Trust between partners is to a considerable extent a side effect of personal contact, which especially in the initial phase of PEGS development is important. Existing (personal) contacts between partners in different Member States and between partners with different backgrounds (e.g. public and private sector) provides fertile ground for PEGS. Partly this is because existing contacts signal existing needs for cooperation, but partly it also is an autonomous factor: a history of interaction builds familiarity, shared terminology, common understanding, and trust.

Another important enabling factor is the availability of finance. EU seed funding or “public venture capital”, combined with availability of funding in the partner organizations themselves of own means and additional self sources of funding from existing funding schemes or from professional funding organizations such as banks. In the optimal financial mix, seed funding of the EU leverages other sources of funding and is used as “threshold” money, to get over the threshold of initiating PEGS development, after which a development trajectory can become self-propelling. It is important that to make sure that funding structures strengthen rather than distort incentives.

Obviously, technical, organizational and semantic interoperability are important enablers for PEGS development. While for example the portal approach makes it possible to maintain a substantial level of diversity of practices, even there interoperability in all dimensions is important, in order for the partners to understand each other and connect to each other.

Availability of PEGS relevant information and knowledge is also an important enabling factor. Often the public sector in other Member States is not very transparent not only to citizens from other MS but also by public service providers in other MS. Transparency is important in order to figure out who is doing what, and with whom to connect in order to explore cooperation aimed at PEGS development. Equally important and related is the availability of information and knowledge about how to develop PEGS, through good practice showcasing, the presence of an “information clearing house” in which supply and demand of information and knowledge can find each other, and active community building to facilitate and stimulate exchange, interaction, learning, and in some cases leading to actual cooperation between actors in the area of PEGS.

Additional enabling factors are political support at national level backed up by EC/EU policy initiatives; a simple and viable business model; clear and common rules; use of open standards; solid partners; clear and visible value added to users.

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Obstacles:

Competing interests of European, national, regional, and local actors, can lead to strategic obstacles hampering cooperation and undermining the enabling conditions for cooperation such as trust and a perception of a shared goal.

The bottom-up character of PEGS development poses many operational challenges. PEGS development is typically a complex process involving many different actors from different contexts with different interests and different understandings. It requires high quality management in terms of communications, establishing clear objectives, translating between different contexts, planning, timing, evaluating, learning. Without good management, the initiative risks falling apart easily, making it a risky object for (public) investment. The (lacking) capabilities for complex project management often form a practical bottleneck.

Also, the policy-makers that have to decide about PEGS development often do not have sufficient knowledge of how to do it, in particular technical knowledge (ICT applications) seems often insufficient.

Lack of interoperability at all levels (technical, organizational, semantic) is a barrier, which can only partially be circumvented through using a portal approach.

As mentioned before, initial seed funding and long-term structural funding is vital but often not available. Existing budgetary structures of public service providers often do not offer much opportunity for spending money on cross-border cooperation. Often there is a considerable time lag between costs and benefits, and the costs and benefits are often distributed asymmetrically over different stakeholders. The costs are a problem in an era in which public service providers have to cut costs, while the benefits are often uncertain, unclear and far ahead in time, and difficult to appropriate.


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Case Stud ies & Techno log ica l Demonst rat ions


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POLITECH INSTITUTE’s EXPERT SERVICES

W H EN P O L IT I C A L S C I E N CE MEETS ICT!

PO LITECH I NSTI TUTE a s a Eu r op e a n Ce n te r o f Ex ce l l e n ce d e l iv e r s p o we r f u la n d EXPER T SER VIC ES t o e m p o we r , t ra i n , ed u c a te , a c t i v a te an d m o b i l i z e p u b l i c ,a c ad e m i c , c i v i l a n d p r i v a te s t a k eh o l d e rs a n d e n d - u se r s t o m e e t s u c c e ss fu l l y t h ec h a l l e n g es o f mo d e r n p o l i t i c s a n d p u b l ic g o v er n a n c e i n C yb e r s p ac e :

@ C o nc e p t u a l i z a t io n & or g a n iza t io n o f Eu ro p e a n a n d Int e r n a t io n a lw o rk s h o p s a n d ev e n t s i n d y n a m ic p a r tn e r s h ip s a n d p a r t i c i p a t io n o f k e ya c to r s f ro m t h e p u b l i c , a c a d e m i a , n o t - fo r - p r o f i t a n d p r i v a t e s e c t o r s ;

@ T r a in in g & C a p ac i t y Bu i ld ing – C o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n a n d o r g a n i z a t i o n o fe x e c u t i v e t r a i n i n g t a r g e t i n g d e c is i o n - m a k e r s , l e a d e r s , h ig h - l e v e lr e s e a r c h e r s a n d s e n i o r e x e c u t i v e s ;

@ Pr oje c t s a n d Par t n e r sh ip s Cr e a t ion i n t h e f ra m e w o rk o f p u b l i cp r o c u r e m e n t s a n d E u r o p e a n C a l l s fo r T e n d e r s i n t h e c o n v e rg i n g d o m a i n so f P o l i t i c a l T e c h n o l o g i e s ;

@ W e b 2 .0 ex p e r t s e r v ice s in t h e c on v e r g in g d o ma in s of Po l i t i c a lT e ch n o lo gie s – e S t ra t e g i e s t o e n h a n c e y o u r p u b l i c p r e s e n c e i n W e b 2 . 0e n v i r o n m e n t s ( e . g . F a c e b o o k , S e c o n d L i f e , t h e B l o g o s p h e r e , . . . ) ;

@ C o nd u c t Re p o r t s , R e s ea r c h , P r o s p ec t iv e S t u d ies a n d Su r v e ys i nt h e c o n v er g i n g d o m a i ns o f Po l i t i ca l T e ch n o l o g i e s ;

@ Pu bl ic a t io n s .




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4








ABSTRACT











4








ABSTRACT











4

* Klaus-Peter ECKERT received his M.Sc. in applied mathematics and informatics (1977) and his

Ph.D. in informatics (1996) from the Technical University Berlin (TUB). From 1977 to 1988 he works

as a researcher in the department of mathematics and computer science at the Hahn-Meitner-

Institut Berlin. In 1988, he joined GMD FOKUS (currently Fraunhofer FOKUS) where he works in the

area of object-oriented, distributed systems and service execution environments in the application

domains telecommunications and eGovernment.

ABSTRACT

Implementation of the EU Services Directive

Klaus-Peter ECKERT* Fraunhofer FOKUS, Germany

Substantial changes will take place in the public sector in all EU member states due to the EU Services Directive that must be implemented in national law by December 2009. The “Points of Single Contact” are particularly important in this context, because they will make contact with public administrations considerably easier. There are various design options available for setting up points of single contact. Fraunhofer FOKUS has published an architectural framework and built a prototype to show an example of a possible technical configuration to meet the requirements of the EU Services Directive.


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imPlEmENTaTiON Of ThE Eu SErviCES dirECTivE K.-P. Eckert

Introduction

The EU Services Directive (EU-SD) (Directive 2006/123/EG, see [1], [2]), which was passed in Decem ber 2006, should simplify access to the services market in all Member

States of the European Union and eliminate existing bureaucratic barriers for service providers, thus promoting cross-border services within Europe.

The Directive must become national law and implemented in all EU States by December 2009. In order to achieve this, the governments and administrations of the Member States have to complete a multitude of tasks associated with com prehensive modifications to business and administrative law. As part of a “One Stop Go vern ment” it is necessary to set up “Points of Single Contact” (PSC) (Article 6) for service pro viders in all Member States and to accompany them in all ad mini strative processes during the en tire life cycle from the cradle to the grave: from the start up of services activities and during the course of these services activities right through to liquidation. These Points of Single Contact should keep service providers from EU Member States informed about all rele vant guidelines and responsibilities and also help with the processing of proce dures and for malities in the public sector (Article 7). It is assumed that Points of Single Contact in many Member States will not only be assigned to foreign service providers: this service will also be offered to national businesses for politico-economic reasons.

Furthermore, public authorities (PA) at all administrative levels must ensure that the ad-ministrative procedures affected by the EU Services Directive can be elec tro ni cally transacted (Article 8) towards PSCs and responsible public authorities. The authorisation procedures and formalities (Article 13) must be simplified so that applications can be processed promptly and within a predetermined and publicised timeframe. This time pe riod only com mences once the required documents have been submitted and validated in their en tire ty. This will noticeably speed up procedures and put the ad mini stra tive de part ments in particular under the pressure of a time limit. If an appli ca tion is not pro cessed within the time limit, authorisation is granted. Further more, with the Inter nal Market Information system (IMI) [4], administrative assis tance between Member States (Articles 28 and 29) should be guaranteed in elec tronic form. A legislation screening, in which all governments are required to scrutinise the available rules, procedures and formalities (Article 5) in relation to the directive in terms of necessity, simplicity and optimisation should, in ad di tion, have an enduring effect by contributing to the dismantling of bureau cracy.

Points of Single Contact and electronic processing will make a considerable con tri bution to the simplification of structures, processes and formalities. A tho rough implementation of the relevant one-stop government concepts will have a noticeable effect on the entire public sector in all Member States (at the na tio nal, regional and local level) which will, in turn, influence the en tire area of ap pli cation of European services businesses.

A Service Oriented Architectural Framework

One of the major requirements regarding the EU Services Directive is to design an architectural frame work for future Points of Single Contact as core components within the implementation of the EU-SD.

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Conside ring the possi bi li ties, it is a fact, that e.g. within Germany or larger states like France, UK or Italy, there will hardly be only one Point of Single Contact. It is more likely that there will be more than just one Point of Single Con tact within one national state. Therefore it is important that the architectural framework can inte grate heterogenic approaches and satisfy their requirements. Such a framework comprises recommendations and specifications describing how a PSC interworks with components related to service providers, with components offering the required information about processes and public authorities, with such public authorities offering public sector services, with other PSCs, and with supporting IT-services.

In the context of the EU Services Directive it is evident that from a federal and legal political perspective, task and responsibilities e.g. in Germany are currently shared by several institutions which are independent of each other. As a result, working with diversified data and systems becomes inevitable. The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach is a very good option to overcome the technical barriers. The SOA approach allows cooperative administrative structures to be established and specialized application to be integrated in a platform independent manner.

In the given context, several autonomous, distributed and heterogeneous public authorities are required to exchange information in a standardised way. Public authorities may already use organisational and technical SOA environments to execute their services and offer them to citizens and businesses.

They may use such environment to exchange information with other national or foreign public authorities. PSCs will need SOA environments for mutual communication, to interwork with public authorities and to offer their services to service providers.

Figure 1: SOA Bus-Architecture within the EU-SD

PS

C -

PA

Bus

x PS

C - P

A B

usy

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As depicted in Figure 1 a logical EU-SD bus between all involved parties has to be introduced to manage the communication between the parties and to bridge the gaps between possibly heterogeneous protocols and data formats. Well know concepts following the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) paradigm can be used to implement this bus.

Processes in the EU-SD

The Point of Single Contact is the central component of every implementation of the EU-SD. As stated above, a PSC has to support a service provider in several ways. A PSC must be able to provide information about all rele vant guidelines and procedures that are necessary to open and operate a business. This information includes detailed description of the corresponding processes, required documents, and access information of the relevant public authorities. Such information has to be gathered and provided by local or global knowledge management systems, depending on the PSC’s competence.

Secondly a PSC must be able to support the preparation of applications and the processing of proce dures and for malities in the public sector. Access to the knowledge management system, a secure case management system including administration of service providers and applications as well as a secure and user-friendly communication system towards the applicants has to be provided.

Figure 2: Components around Points of Single Contact

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Public authorities that are responsible for the execution of particular steps of the application process have to be retrieved and localized. The PA’s public services have to be invoked by the PSC and all necessary information about the applicant together with the required documents have to be passed to them. Thus each PSC will consist of subcomponents supporting the PSC’s core processes like information provisioning, application preparation, application processing together with administrative processes like the maintenance of PSC’s related repositories. As depicted in Figure 2, a PSC has to be embedded in a couple of supporting sub-Systems enabling either the PSC’s core functionality or the communication with service providers, public authorities and other PSC’s. Following the EU-SP every member state has to provide at least one PSC.

Depending on the internal structure of the state, especially in federated states, more than one PSC may be deployed, even private operated PSC are possible, at least to some extent. In case of the existence of a set of PSCs, mechanisms must be established that allow locating a responsible PSC and that support inter PSC communication.

It has been stated that PSCs are supporting applicants in several ways. Each execution thread is implemented by a corresponding process, a core process of the PSC. These core processes are independent from the concrete application. Instead every type of application defines a corresponding “General Process” (GP) that defines and controls the interworking between PSC and the responsible PAs, depending on the application’s details. These processes have to be administered in corresponding repositories together with application and process specific, intelligent forms that again can be created dynamically depending on the application’s details. General processes can be plugged into the PSC’s core processes and executed either manually using worklist applications or even automatically.

General processes are implemented using public sector services provided by responsible public authorities. These services can be implemented as PA specific services or as more complex, distributed processes between collaborating PAs. In both cases exactly one PA provides a well defined interface to its customers, which has to be used and invoked by the general process. From a SOA point of view three different kinds of processes can be identified.

The local core processes of a PSC are offering their services to the applicant. General processes are controlled by a PSC. They are running between the PSC and several, federated PAs. Thus concepts related to Enterprise SOA can be applied. Thirdly public services, provided by a PA, can be implemented either in a monolithic way or as distributed processes between several PAs.

Of special interest is the communication between PAs located in different Member States.

Such collaboration is necessary in case of the retrieval, validation, and mapping of provided documents. The Inter nal Market Information system (IMI) can be used for such purposes.

Figure 1 depicts such a configuration from a communication point of view, Figure 3 depicts the configuration from a process point of view.

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In every SOA kind of system three types of entities can be identified. Basic services are provided by dedicated providers, workflow processes can use basic services and other processes and client components are able to invoke basic services and processes. They are not allowed to be called by other services. In the context of the EU-SD interactive clients such as portals have to be implemented supporting access of service providers and application processing by the PSC’s and PA’s staff. Such portals must satisfy all legal requirements between applicants and PSCs. Secure data and document safes used to store details about applicants, application and corresponding document should ease the communication between service providers and PSCs and can be aligned with the portals.

The portals provided to the PSC’s staff can be implemented using human worklist technology which fits nicely into the workflow and SOA paradigms.x

Summary

The implementation of the EU Service Directive is a big challenge in and between the Member States. While the core functionality of every implementation can be defined rather directly as shown in [3] several organizational, technical, and deployment options are existing. Fraunhofer FOKUS has built prototypes demonstrating selected functionality and design options but a lot of research and work will be necessary to provide sustainable and interoperable processes and services, together with a supporting IT-infrastructure and corresponding governance rules.

Special challenges are the development of EU wide security mechanisms including global identification and authentication as well as the identification and specification of mandatory reference points between components and services. These reference points consist of the minimum of standardized protocols and data types necessary to ensure interoperability between different implementations. The development of a standardized knowledge management system comprising agreed data formats and access protocols is preferable.

Figure 3: Relation between EU-SD processes

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References

[1] Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on Services in the Internal Market; December 2006

[2] Handbook on implementation of the Service Directive; Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities; 2007

[3] J. von Lucke, C. Breitenstrom, K.-P. Eckert: IT-Umsetzung der EU-Dienstleistungs richtlinie; Gestaltungsoptionen, Rahmenarchitektur und technischer Lösungsvorschlag - Version 2.0; Fraunhofer IRB Verlag; August 2008; ISBN 978-3-8167-7765-6

[4] Internal Market Information Systems: IMI; http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/5378/5637


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* Frank LEYMAN works for FEDICT (Belgian Federal Public Service for ICT) since mid-2005, where

he manages International Relations as well as the relations with the European Commission, UN

and OECD.

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEW WITH

Frank LEYMAN, FEDICT, Belgium

Frank LEYMAN* Relationship Manager, Federal Public Service for ICT (FEDICT), Belgium

Being an essential element to achieve Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGs) in Europe, cross-border interoperability has been identified by the European Union Member States as one of the 4 policy actions of the Lisbon eGovernment Ministerial Declaration (Sept 2007), which will drive eGovernment future developments and enable the creation of an Internal Market without electronic barriers. The STORK pilot project is coming to provide practical answers to this important challenge of cross-border interoperability in the domains of Electronic Identity Management and eSignature. Frank LEYMAN, Relationship Manager for the Belgian Federal Public Service for ICT (FEDICT), is interviewed by Daniel VAN LERBERGHE, ERPT’s Editor-in-chief.


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iNTErviEW WiTh fraNK lEymaN F. Leyman

1. As stated by the European Commission: “Key enablers are the glue that binds eGovernment together. Public agencies need to coordinate their development of eGovernment services, and agree on basic principles. Interoperability of systems is fundamental, and electronic identities (eID) need to be recognized by all if they are to replace traditional paper ID cards”. eID is a key enabler to achieve an Internal Market without electronic barriers (e.g. EC Service Directive) and to rip the benefits of eGovernment.

The STORK consortium answered a call launched by the European Commission under the Common Interest programs (CIP) in 2007. Specifically, STORK was intended for

the creation of a pilot on eID interoperability, which would solve cross-border issues both for citizens and companies. For instance, a Belgian citizen staying in Spain, even for a short stay would be able to access medical or any public service from his country of residence (e.g. to fill out his tax declaration or receive any administrative document needed).

The same principle should apply to companies: a company located in Member State A should be able to participate in a tender of another Member State B by identifying itself with the tools provided by its country of origin and to claim tax refunds from a country C because the real work takes place here. This summarizes the bases of the concept. Interoperability also for firms is aimed to make business more convenient and more transparent.

Following a request of the Commission, the consortium had to be constituted with a minimum of six members. The objective was to conceive and make available an architecture allowing this interoperability. A country has not to adapt its existing infrastructure but the consortium wishes to build a layer on the top. The interface has to work with every model and we validate the architecture using a number of pilots. The Commission requested a minimum of three pilots to be set up kept operational during twelve months. During this period anybody should be allowed to test the system. Afterwards we have to conclude and report to all Member States and implement if the results are positive.

The achievement of STORK brought the Commission to another project. Austria and Belgium, initial partners work now together with 13 Member States and Iceland i.e. 14 countries. We hope to extend the consortium to 29 countries some of these having more than one ministry involved. A number of NGOs, universities and private companies are participating. These companies are either representative of Member States (e.g. Germany asked private companies to represent the state in STORK) or companies doing the overall project management. Originally the project had to be run by Member States owners of the project provided that the state organizes the involvement and the connection with the private sector.

The available documents are funded on a fifty-fifty basis by the Commission and the participating governments.

This first phase achieved, the members came together in order to formulate a methodology.

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All the documents have been submitted to the Commission and the consortium. Our proposals were accepted and the project is scheduled to start on June 1.

In order to define the work packages (WP) we proceeded as follows:

• WP1 takes care of the management of the whole project. Atos Origin (Spain) took the leadership with the support of Cap Gemini (Netherlands);

• WP2 (benchmarking) describes the “specification sheet” of all countries. This valuable input has to be benchmarked. This is an ongoing process; `

• WP3 looks at the already available or coming to maturity in a near future. We do not want to be limited to a technology or even a brand standard. We have to remain as open as possible;

• WP4 in project is intended to determine the process flow for cross-border eID interoperability. For instance: how could we imagine a common way of process flow to ask or check somebody’s identity? Once we have the answers of these WP we can start thinking about an architecture;

• WP5 will use the synthesis of these inputs and draw the additional layer. Since it is not the intention to modify the existing infrastructures, we have to be as open as possible, this being concretized by the elaboration of common specifications. These last will be integrated in classical project management steps, translating functional specifications to technical specifications. The result will be built in a lab environment and if it succeeds it will be submitted to WP6;

• WP6 is about eAccess and portals. We have to keep it open running during twelve months in order to implement the necessary adjustments.

What are the five pilots?

We call the first pilot “a giant portal” which is actually the main entrance door to web applications.

The name “giant portal” illustrates the fact that it covers all the access methods gathered that will be tested here. Whatever you do over internet you always need to identify yourself with your own tools and once identified you receive access to the application needed.

The second pilot talks about a safer chat environment for children. In Belgium we have kids ID and this concern of safety is shared by other countries. This safer chat environment can be extended to other categories (e.g. retired people). Once the first segment is operational it can easily be applied to anybody else.

The third pilot will be about students’ mobility within the ERASMUS programs. Every student’s file has to be moved every six months after the student has ended a term in one country and begins another tern in a second country.

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These files must remain accessible from everywhere and contain all the relevant information.

The students’ community is already an international moving community and universities are part of our project.

The fourth pilot is about electronic deliveries or trans-border deliveries with proof of receipt or more generally about every kind of document used to prove the receipt of deliveries.

The last pilot is specifically about changing address.

This list of pilot is sufficient. Actually any topic could be seen as a pilot to test.

The STORK pilot project is coming to provide practical answers to this important challenge of cross-border interoperability in the domains of Electronic Identity Management and eSignature. Can you briefly present this important European pilot project?

STORK takes care of studying cross-border eSignatures. Since in many countries the eSignature is closely linked to the eID, our objective of eID interoperability testing remains relevant. Some countries or companies could want additional tests with the eSignature: the chosen method will easily extend the process of testing. The door remains open for every country, company or university wanting these tests and why not for the exchange of signatures. But this is not the main purpose of STORK.

We have a “liaison officer” with other projects working on eSignature, and therefore a permanent exchange of information with these groups. For instance we will have a close link with eProcurement where the identity of the actors is an essential part of the deal.

Therefore we will probably hook up with their activity and they will need our input.

2. What are the main issues in terms of cross-border interoperability that the STORK project is facing?

At the present time, European legislation at cross-border level does not exist. So, I imagine STORK will have to make in the future some assumptions for the pilots but the problem will remain. At the end of the day, things will have to be made official.

Would it be a part of your recommendations?

Yes of course. Member States have already suggested to departments like IDABC to do additional studies on this leader’s aspect. I think IDABC responds positively to this and acknowledges that there is some work to be done. Another hard discussion can be imagined as different countries may have different levels of trust. Applications are linked to a specific level of trust. But if you put all these levels of trust together there will be no consistence. So the levels of trust will have to be aligned as one of the main actions.

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Another debate will be about common specifications. Every country has a different definition of eID. Some countries work virtually; some other use a passport. We have to treat all countries equally and work with every system.

One of the work packages is basically benchmarking interoperability. Did you already identify or think about good practices or projects that could be interesting to help STORK to overcome certain challenges in the interoperability for example?

Actually, again for the sake of the pilot we have chosen an application linked to the first pilot.

The Belgian application called LIMOSA used is cross-border: every foreign worker wanting to perform as a professional in Belgium has to register himself in LIMOSA. The company sending somebody out is registered similarly to the person sent and so are the described contract and the tasks to be performed. Once this done, a certificate is issued and back offices of the two countries are interlinked. In LIMOSA, with STORK, we will put upfront and put system to login with the eID system working in each other countries. Then a polish human resources manager can login with his polish identity card into LIMOSA. Whatever the identification system is, we will use that upfront to get into this application.

The Commission is currently thinking about a project of pan-European services. Did they take into account the identity management?

Personally, I believe the STORK Partners have the impression that the Commission puts a lot of hope on STORK, so we feel a lot of pressure on this. I think it is a deep strategic project and this is why it gets a lot of attention and now it is up to us to do it.

3. When addressing interoperability (IOP), we commonly categorize IOP into 3 categories, namely ‘Technical IOP’, ‘Semantic IOP’ and ‘Organizational IOP’. What are in your views and taking into account the challenges of STORK, in terms of secure electronic identity and eSignature, which will work across Europe, the most challenging IOP category to achieve these objectives?

The three types of IOPs are: technical, semantic and organizational. For me these three types have to be treated simultaneously. It is equally important to have a good semantic and a good technical interoperability.

From what you’re saying, the technical interoperability seems to be unsolved when the semantic layer seems to be on its way.

Our first priority will be to agree on semantics to be sure we talk about the same things.

However organizational, you can put this layer on top it doesn’t change the way the countries, their ministries will have to organize themselves?

The idea is not to change it or to adapt it. Up to now Belgium does not have a website were anything international can be done.

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It needs to be created or updated from something that already exists. The eID could play this role.

But again the semantics are as important as the technical layer.

But it seems to be more delicate or at least having less impact because you don’t interfere into the organization itself…

No, the idea is different. We leave to the countries the way every country translates the interface we build to operational aspects. Every country will have to do the interface with the layer that it built. Our philosophy remains the same: every country is free to organize it by itself. STORK will not concentrate on the way countries organize their front office.

Maybe it would be useful to mention our website. We use it as a communication channel for companies or any entity feeling it has something to bring or wanting to be involved or informed on one of our WP. We are setting up a system where you can just enrol or put your besides one of the WP. We will try to form groups targeted by the tasks to be performed.

We will organize workshops and discussion groups to exchange our experience. So that we can submit what we have in mind and have been challenged by the industries or vice-versa, we let the industry talk to us and give us ideas. We have the absolute ambition to keep a very active channel open with the industry and the academic world. The website will be the contact point to start.

4. Can you illustrate the critical success factors in terms of IOP with practical examples you came across in the domain of Electronic Identity Management (eIDM)?

If you look at the way we have built our back office, we have also a layer model made in such a way that is secured and well structured in order to face the future evolutions, but it is also conceived in such a way that we can offer equal treatment to all our users.

When you have ministries at federal, regional and community level, we do not interfere in the infrastructures of the ministries themselves and we see indeed that every ministry has different brands, different culture and so on…We just focus on organizing the traffic in a secure way.

Maybe you take the technical interoperability aspects rather than the organizational aspects?

Yes we do the connection, communication and security layer. We do not know what is inside or what we carry. Of course there is another debate about the content and the respect of privacy and the way data are used. At the present time we do not focus on this.

We interconnect our different entities or customers an equal way. We always say that Belgium is a little Europe at least a small version of it and I think it is true. Now we have this layer model I can easily add the upcoming 3 STORK layer” and it will allow me and all my customers together to get to the international work.

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This model, within Belgium, works well and is cheap enough to convince the different entities to use it. So we should have the same kind of approach for Europe. From the beginning I said that I am not supposed to oblige a country to adapt its existing infrastructures: we have the same ambition at the European level. The parallel is very clear to me. The layer we shall build is going to be a special one. It would have been much easier with a single standard model of course. But reality is different so we have to build a more complex interface.

So, for you, it doesn’t matter if that standard is used instead of another one?

I am not sure I have to talk about a standard. The job that STORK will do is about building a common interface. At the end every country will have to hook up to that interface. In the future, once this is done it might evolve to a real standard and of course, we will look at and ask advices to companies specialized in this field. The necessary output of our work must remain acceptable to all Member States but it must not be a standard. It would be easier if it is a standard but it does not matter.

As long as Member States approve our suggestions, I think we have done a good job.

5. Many Member States in many areas also see Belgium as a laboratory for Europe. Due to its federal structure, Belgium has undertaken many eGovernment initiatives where IOP was key for their successes such as the Crossroad Bank for Social Security and the BEL eID. Therefore, taking into account the above, what will be in your opinion the Critical Success Factors to achieve pan-European eGovernment Services and implement successfully the EC Service Directive in terms of eGovernment. Can you provide examples from your own initiatives and experiences?

In Belgium, LIMOSA has been developed under the lead of the ONSS and the Crossroad Bank for Social Security but is not primary focused on the social sector. I think ONSS and the BCSS did a good job thanks to a number of variables that were good and allowed to build this. I think that professions taken all together have enough substance to realize their interconnection and to be efficient.

Once the framework set up, the door is open to everything. Our mission is to elaborate a decent and secure tool acceptable to every country and every firm willing to use us. They need to trust us and this is our objective.

Interoperability has been a very important subject in Lisbon and also under the Slovenian presidency. Do you think now that we basically switched, that this prototype might be developed in STORK and over application or do you think that until the next ministerial conference interoperability will be left aside?

However we will be in another phase that has to be clearly defined, it has to be an on going process. When they for the first time said that there were no longer borders, interoperability is one of the tools to be used to get rid of these borders. I imagine that by 2009, we will be in the middle of our pilot exercise and they will talk about it. I think the program that has to be prepared now for 2015 will take interoperability into account and they will just continue building further on. It is a necessity; we are now in a phase where we develop this interoperability in a secure way.


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* Bror SALMELIN joined the European Commission in March 1998, as Head of Unit in DG III F/7

(Integration in Manufacturing) – Since January 1999, he is the Head of the Electronic Commerce

Unit (C3) within the Directorate-General Information Society and is working in the framework of

the IST programme (Information SocietyTechnology).

ABSTRACT

Living Labs: Challenges for Networking in Open

Innovation Environments

Bror SALMELIN* Head of the Electronic Commerce Unit (C3), Information Society Directorate-General, European Commission, Europe

This article describes how Living Labs as innovation environments could be important components supporting open innovation, especially for services development. Living Labs as open, scalable and user-centric environments are very different from the traditional development environments, such as testbeds and methods like prototyping. The changing innovation paradigm and drivers for this new, open user-centric view is described. The article also links open innovation and networking in Living Labs to the recent work and new directions of work emerging in the European Commission's research programmes for Information Society.


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liviNg labS: ChallENgES fOr NETWOrKiNg iN OPEN iNNOvaTiON ENvirONmENTS B. Salmelin

Background

Living Labs is a concept developed in MIT by William Mitchell, originating from architectural design, and further developed by industry and the EU e.g. in European

context in European research programmes to cover the EAR (Experiment and application research) aspects of innovation cycles.

The importance of Living Labs, i.e. pushing the research out from laboratories to real world environments with “real” users is reflecting a fundamental change of innovation paradigms, creating environments with multidisciplinarity and multimaturity of solutions never seen before.

Important for these Living Labs environments is also their size, enabling parallel development and experimentation not only on systems and technology, but foremost on business and even societal behavioural models. All this together means faster innovation, with higher innovation success rate. The wrong directions are detected earlier, and thus the failures are smaller. Corrective actions are better, and the products and services are developed simultaneously with the market, i.e. in close interaction with all stakeholders.

Living Labs also reflect the change from linear innovation and development processes with clear steps from basic research via applied research, development to deployment to a strongly parallel multidisciplinary process, where interactions between the various needed components are of increased importance.

To achieve real impact on wider than the local Living Lab scale, networking of the actors and sites are increasingly important, to build thematic innovation ecosystems across the regions. This means sharing of best practise, but increasingly also the possibility to create wider, thematic reference architectures and systems solutions on e.g. pan-European scale.

1. Innovation dynamics

Service convergence:

Technology convergence is changing the landscape for services creation and delivery radically. SOA and convergence of computing, communication and media together with new web technologies (web 2.0) mean multichannel access and delivery possibilities for increasingly more products and services. This is however only a part of the convergence landscape.

We see increasingly more services being highly context sensitive, and personalised, and therefore the modern view of convergence should increasingly take into account the aspect of service convergence, focusing and centred on the user. Living Labs are here a valuable instrument for merging these two aspects of convergence, as it provides the open development environment, providing the architecture and the building blocks for the development and configuration of the service modules, often provided by local suppliers, and SME’s having found a niche.

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Living Labs provide good nurturing environment for the creative commons, and EAR.

Examples of the technological development can be seen in applications built on semi-open platforms and meshing are geographical applications like Google maps, social networking tools like Facebook, applications using virtual reality environments like Second Life, trust building process platforms like in eBay, financial transactions like eInvoicing etc.

Also in smaller scale the open platforms trend is becoming more obvious. E.g. an SME can start its business immediately global using available (semi) open platforms for all of the phases of the normal business operations, without needing to bother too much of software themselves.

When this service convergence is done on open functional platforms following common service-convergence reference architecture from user-centric way it creates a magnificent technology policy instrument to foster the growth of an entirely new service sector industry.

User centricity:

Also personalisation of services is now possible in higher degree than ever before. However the view of services development is still fat too much based on the old, service provider and telco perspective, where users are only seen as objects for the developed services.

Service convergence and user-centricity, where the user configures the service and product set from the offerings of the service providers, is however fully capitalising the networking effects and open innovation ecosystems benefits. Users configure the services in personalised way, in highly context sensitive way. We are moving from “service push” to “service pull” or actually to a co-creative mode in services development

Networking to increase innovation base:

One of the classical examples of networking success is the so-called “Valley Dynamics” describing the Silicon Valley innovation experience. Here the innovation network comprises of people who are interconnected, and having multiple roles in their professional life, exchanging information, sharing best practise and building strategic alliances together. This is well described e.g. by Castilla in 2000 in his work “Social Networks in Silicon Valley”.

Figure 1: Valley dynamics (Castilla 2000): Strong

interaction between individuals, in a mesh structure

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Characteristics for this dynamics is sharing of knowledge and experience, openness in innovation ecosystems, and building very much on the social capital of the Valley. All, which characterise very well open innovation processes, capitalising on the multidisciplinarity and strong interactions between all parties.

Figure 2 : Open Innovation is taking full advantage of the societal capital, and builds on open networking

based on internal and external spill-over effects and networking. (Modified from Chesborough)

Open Innovation highlights the need of looking at the processes of service development, and also the position of the organisation in a new way. Open innovation takes full benefit of the environment and their interactions by using the societal capital (creative commons) as one of the building blocks for the service provision. It also takes benefit of the spill-over effects in positioning the organisation in the network, but also to increase the societal capital; one could say innovation experience to create a growing spiral of knowledge in an environment or within a topical area.

Living Labs

Living Labs are good, leading examples of open innovation environments, systems for systematic technological and simultaneous societal innovation in real-life user-centric settings. In these environments the interactions between the various innovation components are reinforced and catalysed, to achieve a continuous growth process of the common societal capital as foundation, and to increased knowledge base to build new products and services on.

Living Labs provide the ecosystem with infrastructures, connectivity, and measurement of interaction and innovation performance, and acts as environment for integrating the various phases of development across various fields to get a shared innovation experience, with commonalities where feasible. E.g. reference architecture s for services is a valuable outcome, same look and feel from the user perspective, and interoperability across services are important outcomes for these commons structures.

Typically Living Labs are municipalities, cities and urban areas, all having a strong regional dimension. This is understandable, as this new type of PPPP (Public- Private-People-Partnership) is often built upon public infrastructure investments, and so far often driven by the interest of the public sector to develop new and better services for the citizens.

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Living Labs are innovation environments, systems for systematic technological and simultaneous societal innovation in real-life user-centric settings. In these environments the interactions between the various innovation components are reinforced and catalysed, to achieve a continuous growth process of the common societal capital as foundation, and to increased knowledge base to build new products and services on.

However, in the fully-fledged Living Labbing the concept is networked, thematically across these regional sites, e.g. sectorally like eHealth, eGovernment, eInclusion etc. Moreover we will see also purely secctorial Living Labs, where the Living Lab is physically dispersed across certain sectors, like automotive, agriculture etc, more following the value chain and the delivery of services within or alongside those industrial sectors. Good examples might be food value chains, or design and engineering tools, both cutting across sectors, but in different way; food value chains being the actual product within the sector, engineering again being the essential tools for increasing effectiveness and productivity in the sector itself.

Ensuring the user involvement continuously in all stages of the development ensures also easier and faster deployability of results, as well as scalability of the solutions fund.

The societal dimension means also that in these large, scalable, inclusive innovation ecosystems in real world it is easier to test, experiment and verify accept able solutions, which might in turn lead to out of the box thinking more rapidly than the traditional incremental, service delivery centric approaches.

2. Networking for pan-European functionality:

Drivers for new innovation paradigms in knowledge economy is characterised by increased importance of intangible knowledge, and thus connectivity.

Figure 3: The more there is diversity in a group, the higher the probability of breakthroughs.

(Lee Fleming, Perfecting gross-pollination. Harvard Business review September 2004)

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Multidisciplinarity is increasingly important in the value proposition itself, but also in the deployability, in the acceptance of products and services. The more multidisciplinarity there is in an innovation ecosystem, the higher the probability of breakthroughs.

The connectivity becomes even more important than the knowledge elements per se. With strong connectivity and sharing all the needed competencies can be brought together, even if they originally would be quite dispersed.

Open innovation is much based on trusted community building, synthesising common needs, and creating common approaches to service development and deployment/delivery.

The collaborative tools, close to the human societal behaviour needs to be shared, again to have a wide coverage of the skills and competencies needed to perform common tasks, for common goals. Spontaneity is one critical factor for these virtual environments, besides natural use of the shared space and the commons.

Cultural diversity, multilingualism, and often also a new approach to the inclusion is necessary when fully exploiting the potential of the creation of new services, which often can be quite personalised, and are based on high contextualisation. Again, connectivity to communities help to develop a sustainable business offering, too, for the service providers.

Figure 4: Combining Living Labs and strong open networking reinforces the positive effects of both

(Euzen 2008)

Networking challenges are much related to commitment. Information exchange and even best practise exercises do not represent real commitment. Only when selecting jointly common interest areas, be it technology or applications and working jointly on the issues real commitment of sharing can be seen.

Scalability is one of the critical drivers for networking of the Living Labs: When bringing innovation to “large enough” and multiculturally rich real-world settings, there is not only the advantage of having hands-on experience on the service offering, and its acceptability

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but also the scalability of the service directly to fit the larger market. Hence the Lead Market development could very well be initiated in these open innovation environments, e.g. Living Labs. This Lead Market is then significantly strengthened by interconnecting the single Living labs, pan-European wide, to thematic and functional sites for European solutions directly. All this shortened the time for development and increases the success rate of products and services, and all this even very cost effectively.

Without this kind of bottom-up user centric approach it is difficult to bring together pan-European services architecture, supporting genuinely the Single Market. Even if the Single Market initiative can and should be born in compact open environments, equally important is to see that the concepts are rapidly deployed and further developed in a coherent systems architecture, which should be open for new service providers to build their (often local) service offering on these open, interoperable and service roaming enabling functional platforms.

The service industry is moving strongly towards value proposing services, rather than only cost-efficient solutions. Hence also the user as co-creator of the services is central, to develop the value propositions further. The technology trend of web (2.0) based services and even further the mesh technology of open platforms makes this even easier.

These new value propositions of the services enable also the development for new business models with the necessary development of e.g. legal frameworks adapting to the need of these new enabling solutions.

Common horizontal issues for open innovation, like in Living Labs, are e.g. IPR issues on how to combine the open, user-centricity with sustainable business models for platform providers and service industry.

The motivation to participate has not been by experience an issue in these open innovation environments, as long as the users have a shared ownership (notion) of the results, and that they see the process approach, where activity is rewarded by strong involvement in the contextualisation of the services.

3. Conclusions

The dilemma with Living Labs is that they often are created top-down, increasingly by public authorities wanting their regions to profile well in innovation, innovation being one of the hype words today. (Sorry to use it so frequently in this text too, but it is so difficult to replace it…). However Living Labs are exactly tools to remove these hierarchies and let the true users’ perspective affect directly the process, users being co-creators of the services.

Hence the public sector has to understand its strong, but facilitator role, together with the industry, and the people. It is very much of all the ingredients being put together, by different parties, and then mix them together in an open innovation, user-centric process.

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Leading industry has well captured its role, but what is still lagging behind is the open service platform thinking offering for the large numbers of SME’s the opportunity to enter the market of platforms and services built upon them.

The work supported by Directorate-General Information Society and Media in the area of Living Labs (based on ISTAG recommendations on EAR), and on open innovation create an emerging path towards the necessary change in innovation policies and research in the EU.

Endorsed by the EU presidencies (Finland, Portugal, Slovenia) and further developed under the French Presidency the concept of European Network of Living Labs is moving well ahead. The ENoLL comprises of 51 sites all over Europe, and the concrete thematic networking is being reinforced by common problem setting and common projects. It can bring results by doing things together, not only talking, not only exchanging information, but with real commitment to achieve joint results. The Slovenian Presidency opened a new call for Living Labs to join the European network, and the third wave will be announced during the French Presidency.

The Directorate for ICT addressing societal issues is simultaneously since one year running a senior industrial group, Open Innovation Strategy and Policy Group (OISPG), who has membership of leading organisations using and fostering open innovation for services.

Organisations like IBM, SAP, Intel, HP, Orange, BT, Philips, Nokia, SITRA and NESTA are already on board. The aim is to be able to give recommendations on how policies and research could at its best support this new paradigm, and how European service industry could best benefit from open innovation as mainstream innovation paradigm.

The OISPG is in 2009 reinforcing its SME membership and building up a strong work agenda addressing the SME issues from open innovation perspective.

For this there is a very healthy background in European collaboration due to the European collaborative research frameworks, which could more strongly support open innovation ecosystems, even with multidisciplinary approaches.

Referring to the most recent Aho group report evaluating the IST research programme the work been built by the actions supporting Living Labs, and more recently also open innovation as such is clearly supporting the new strategic orientation necessary to take to boost European research and take-up of research especially in user-centric service industries.

Work is just in the beginning, but progressing on very sound basis.

Disclaimer: This text represents the views of the author, and is not the official position of the Commission services. The text is a background document for the contribution to the Bled eConference 2008 session organised by POLITECH INSTITUTE in partnership with EIPA.


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S P ON S O R S HI P , M EM B E R S HI P O R P A T R O NA G E

<www.pol i tech- inst i tute .org /mem.asp>

@ B e p a r t o f a n a c t i v e Eur o p e a n c e n t re o f ex c e l l en c e , in n o v a t i o n a nd c o l la b o r a t i o nb e tw e e n co n v e r g i n g d om a i n s a n d A L L i ts S ta ke h o l d e r s t o o v e r c om e th e k e yc h a l l e n g es o f d i g i t a l g o v e rn a n c e , p o l i t i c s a nd d e m oc r a c y i n a ‘c i t i z en - d r i ve n ’d i g i t a l wo r l d .

@ G e t a n i n s t ru m e n t f o r p o l i c y sh a p i n g & i n no v a t i on ( Eu ro p e a n , n a t i on a l , re g i o n a l

& lo c a l le v e l s ) .

@ B o os t YO UR C ap a c i t y Bu i l d i n g a nd C o m pe t i t i ve n e s s i n t h e c o n v er g i n g d o m a i nso f p o l i t i c a l t ec h n o l og i e s .

@ En ha n c e YO UR v is i b i l i t y f o r i n i t ia t i v e s , p r o je c t s , p r o d u c t s & ac t i v i t i e s i n Eu r o pe .

@ T a ke p a r t i n a f r am e w o r k f o r pa r t n e rs h i p bu i l d i ng b e twe e n t he p u b l i c s p he r e ,a c ad e m i a & m a j o r t e c hn o l o g ic a l p la y e r s – a n in n o v a t i v e PPP !

@ T r a in L ea d e r s h i p , Boo s t a wa r e n e ss & Enh a n c e M a r k e t Ed u c a t i o n .

@ C o nt r ib u te t o Pu b l ic a t i o ns , T r a i n i n g & i n f o r m a t i ve w o r ks h o p s , o n l i ne a c t iv i t i e s &c o ns u l t a t i o n s .

Become a member of an ac t i ve and dynamic Eur opean Networ k i n the

conver gi ng domai ns of Pol i t i ca l Technologi es !



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4








ABSTRACT











4








ABSTRACT











4

*Irena TRSINAR is Head of Section for the Central Population Register and Data Management in

the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Slovenia. She is responsible for the Central

Population Register (CRP) and data dissemination within the population registration system in

Slovenia as well as for the development and use of e-services within this field.

**Hendrik TAMM is Director for the relation to public authorities at the RISER ID Services

GmbH. He is the project manager responsible for the RISER eTEN-project, which aims to deploy

the service throughout Europe. Before joining the RISER ID Services GmbH Mr. Tamm worked as

a public sector consultant at the PSI Information Management GmbH for several years.

ABSTRACT

Registry Information Service on European Residents

Trans-Border eService in European Civil Registration

Irena TRSINAR* Head of Section for the Central Population Register and Data Management, Ministry of the Interior, Slovenia

Hendrik TAMM** Director, Public Authorities RISER ID Services GmbH, Germany

Verification of address information by accessing civil registries is one of the most frequently used services offered by public administrations in the EU Member States. However, companies and citizens who want to gather information from a foreign civil registration office face a complex situation of responsibilities, idiosyncratic requirements and language barriers. The Registry Information Service on European Residents (RISER) changes this by setting-up a central web-service for collecting inquiries, distributing them to the responsible authorities and delivering the results to the customer. Being one of the first Trans- European eGovernment services for Business and Citizens the purpose of RISER is to extend to all EU Member States. RISER is supported by the eTEN-Programme of the European Commission.


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rEgiSTry iNfOrmaTiON SErviCE ON EurOPEaN rESidENTS I. Trsinar - H. Tamm

Introduction

RISER is a Trans-European eGovernment service, which was set up to offer official civil registry information to companies and administrations from across Europe in an easy to access manner. The service is supplied by national or local authorities with data from the respective registries. It provides uniform and multilingual access to its customers via a secure Internet infrastructure based on open standards.

Verification of address information by accessing civil registries is one of the most frequently used services offered by public administrations in the EU Member States. The overall number of requests in the EU27 by private companies and public administrations is estimated at 1.3 billion. RISER market research has shown that about 1% of the total amount of requests is cross-border requests. Due to an increasing mobility inside the European Market the share of cross-border requests is expected to increase. Today Businesses spend on average 957 million EUR every year to gather this registry information.

RISER is supported by the European Commission under the eTEN Programme to establish cross-border eGovernment services. RISER has been realised by an international consortium including private and public partners from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Estonia, Ireland, Lithuania and Slovenia.

Business Processes

RISER is the leading source for address verification in European public registers. RISER offers official registry information to companies and administrations and bridges the gap between the public and the private sector. The service is supplied by national or local authorities with data from civil registration. RISER offers a single-point-of-access and enables customers to submit inquiries without knowing in advance the diversified legal and procedural requirements in accessing the desired data in the different Member States.

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RISER offers its customers a uniform and easy-to-use access to the service in many different languages. The faster processing of the required data through the use of ICT reduces the duration of response times compared to traditional paper based processing and therefore makes customer processes more effective. Customers require less effort to submit the requests via the RISER web portal, which also allows submission of bulk inquiries.

Specialising on the provision of registry information from civil registration authorities, RISER offers to its customers a mature service which enhances the customer satisfaction with public services and improves the quality of public service. RISER overcomes administrative burdens in national civil registration and improves the competitiveness of companies in the European Single Market. Its central web-service increases the availability of one of the most frequently used public services offered by local or national authorities to Business and administration. The electronic processing of data improves the efficiency and effectiveness for customers and improves the quality of public service.

RISER conforms to national and European civil registration law and is Best-Practice in privacy protection and data security. The partnership between public and private sector ensures a sustainable business model and a flexible business development for RISER.

Architecture of the system

The software solution of RISER is built by using the Java 2 architectural framework. This guarantees a high level of portability and independence of proprietary platforms as well as adherence to standards. The system uses mature internet communication technologies (SOAP, SSL and HTTP) that are widely adopted and also have been shown to work successfully in many business and administrative contexts. RISER relies on technologies that are open source.

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RISER uses currently the following interfacing standards:

TCP/IP as widespread networking standard for basic connections over the •internet;

SSL for data encryption and server authentication, in some cases for client •authentication as well;

SOAP, SCP or basic HTTPS-POST/GET as data exchange protocols in a variety of •different ways and methods (http upload, different SOAP interfaces).

The technical infrastructure of the RISER network consists of webservers, applicationservers and databaseservers. The webservers can be contacted from the internet to access the RISER customer portal.

The RISER application is installed on the application servers which are kept in a secure area without any access from the internet. Request and result data is stored in the databaseservers. The personal data kept in the database is deleted after 3 month so that no permanent database of personal data is established.

The RISER system consists out of three separate portals which are accessible by the internet. The customer portal enables customers to submit requests, track orders and download results. The supplier portal is used by the public authorities to download requested data and upload result data. The third portal is used for manual checks of requests which have been answered negatively in the automatic search. To access the portals the user has to enter a userID and a unique password.

The RISER

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Application Server processes incoming inquiries. The server decodes and encodes incoming inquiries for customers and suppliers. Connections to data suppliers are partly synchronous and partly asynchronous. Communication with suppliers connected asynchronously works in push-pull mode, meaning that RISER sends requests to the supplier and provides an interface for receiving answers sent by the supplier. The latter is not necessary in the cases of suppliers responding synchronously.

Organisational interoperability

All Member States of the European Union have their national or local authorities which keep civil registers on their residents. But every Member State has organised this civil registration on its own way. Therefore, businesses and administrations which need registry information within the European Single Market face 27 different administrative processes to access this information. The different legal and organisational requirements of each state, as well as the language barriers that exist, make it intricate and costly for potential customers to request such information. Our service tries to remove these various barriers.

The disclosure of personal data from public population registers is dependent on strict privacy protection requirements and RISER only provides information from such official data sources. The processing of personal data only takes place on behalf of our customers which have shown the necessary legal interest for the data. In the processing of this personal information we adhere to the highest standards in IT-Security and privacy protection which ensures the integrity of the data. The involvement of the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection ensures that RISER conforms to all national and European legal requirements regarding civil registration and data protection law and is Best-Practice for the processing of personal data within the European Single Market. The personal data processed by RISER is deleted after the invoicing procedure to avoid the set-up of an “European population register”.

Civil registration authorities that are connected to the RISER Service improve the availability of their public services for foreign and domestic customers. By guiding the RISER customer through the local peculiarities of the national civil registration structures (e.g. consulting on legal requirements, registration of the customer at responsible ministry, removing language barriers) RISER is reducing administrative burdens for the cross-border exchange of data between Business and administrations. RISER is responsible for billing and invoicing its customers which also reduce the efforts of public administration offices. Instead of invoicing a large number of single customers the public authorities now only have to issue one invoice to RISER. With the strong focus on seamless electronic procedures for data processing RISER reduces the efforts for paper-based procedures by up to 75% of the total costs.

To reach the organisational interoperability between RISER and a civil registration authority is a lot more complicated than just the implementation of technical services between both parties. In particular, the differing national legal regulations make it problematic to combine the national offers in a single trans-European service.

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Future development

In mid 2007 the RISER ID Services GmbH has been established to deploy the service throughout Europe. This was an important step to secure the sustainable operation of the service. RISER aims to extend the service to 19 European countries by 2010.

RISER also aims to introduce new services related to official population registers. An example of these new services is the RISER ID Check. The RISER ID Check is based on the existing process of the request for registry information from population registers. The most relevant change to the existing RISER service is that the authorities will provide only a Yes/No answer.

This kind of identity verification allows the customers to check if a person provided correct information about himself or to check if a person is old enough to use certain services (age verification).

RISER Consortium

RISER ID Services GmbH (Coordinator), Germany

KDZ Centre for Administrative Research, Austria

Ministry of Interior, Slovenia

Ministry of Interior, Lithuania

AS Andmevara, Estonia

IDOM 2000, Hungary

ARAM, Poland

Fraunhofer-Institut FOKUS, Germany

Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland

GENIS, Slovenia

Wirtschaftsinformationsdienst GmbH, Germany

LABO (Berlin population register centre), Germany

Independent centre for privacy protection Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

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V

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ebruary 2008

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POLITECH I NSTI TUTE i s a Eu ropean and i n te rna t iona l mee t i ng-po in t f o r a l ls t ak eho lde rs and end -us e rs t o ov erc ome t he c ha l l enges o f d i g i t a lgove rnance and democ rac y , wh i l e re i nv ent i ng modern po l i t ic s and pub l icgove rnance i n Cy be rs pac e .

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE i s a Eur opean Center of Pol i t ica l Technol ogi es andan ‘ i nnovat ion-dr iven Do-Tank ’ ded i c a t ed t o promo t e nov e l c onc ep t s andinnov a t i on empower ing t he d i f f e ren t s t ak eho lde rs i n a ‘ c i t i z en -d r i v en’ d i g i t a lwo r l d , as we l l as t o s uppo r t t he dev e lopmen t o f e f fec t i v e s t ra teg ies , po l i c i esand s ha re o f good p rac t i c es i n t he c onv e rg ing doma ins of Po l i t i c a lTechno log ies - ePol i t i c s , ePar t i c i pa t i on , eDemoc racy , eD ip lomacy ,eCi t i z ensh ip , eGov e rnanc e and eGov e rnmen t .

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE o f f e r s i t s members a Eu ropean and I n t erna t i ona lp la t f o rm o f ne twork , ex c hange , c ons u l t a t i on , i n f o rma t i on , deba te , t r a i n i ng ,and a Eur opean home t o res earc h and dev elopment i n i t i a t i v es t o gene ra teinnov a t i on and s ha re good prac t i ces i n t he conver gi ng domai ns of Pol i t i ca lTechnol ogi es .

POLITECH I NSTI TUTE i s c on t inua l l y dev e lop ing add i t iona l innov a t i v eac t i v i t i es and upg rading i t s c u r ren t ones based on i t s c ore c ompe t enc ies f ort he bene f i t o f i t s members and t he who le c ommun i t y o f s t ak eho lde rs t oenhanc e Eu ropean i nnov a t i on, v i s ib i l i t y and pa r t ne rs h ip in t he conver gi ngdomai ns of Pol i t i ca l Technol ogi es , as a European We l l sp r i ng o f Ex ce l l enceand I nnova t i on t o meet s uc ces s f u l l y t he c ha l lenges o f modern po l i t i c s andpubl i c gov e rnanc e i n Cy be rspac e .




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* Andreas EBERT is focusing on technology policy topics such as interoperability, standardisation,

privacy, security and economic impact of innovation and business models. He has been working for

16 years. Prior to his current position, he had the opportunity to run the Microsoft Austria

Subsidiary as General Manager for 3 years. Andreas holds a Master in Computer Science and

Business Administration from the University of Vienna, Austria.

** Mark LANGE is Senior Policy Counsel for the Microsoft EMEA Law and Corporate Affairs

department. He joined Microsoft in 1998 and is based in Paris. Mark works on legislative and

government policy issues relating to intellectual property, open source software, and competition

across the EMEA region. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mark worked for the law firm of Covington &

Burling in its Washington, D.C. and Brussels offices from 1989 to 1998. His practice included

general litigation, international trade, and intellectual property. Mark is a native of Charlottesville,

Virginia. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1981, and from Northwestern University

Law School in 1989.

ABSTRACT

eGovernment, Communities and Interoperability in an

Evolving IT World: a Company’s View

Andreas EBERT* Regional Technology Officer, Microsoft EMEA

Mark LANGE** Senior Policy Counsel, Microsoft EMEA

Evolving IT developments continue to enable public service communities to connect in more and better ways, as communities also develop organizationally. The interaction between eGovernment officials, citizens, and IT vendors is a vital and constructive element in this evolution. Through a company’s perspective, this paper looks at this interaction – involving new behavior more importantly than new technology – and focuses on the many examples of practical approaches underway by industry to identify and meet the needs of eGovernment now and in the future. In addition to a mindset favoring interoperability, these approaches include support for complementary communities between vendors and customers, communities between vendors, as well as communities of public administrations themselves.

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egOvErNmENT, COmmuNiTiES aNd iNTErOPErabiliTy iN aN EvOlviNg iT WOrld a. Ebert - m. lange

An evolving IT world

Ten years ago, would any of us have predicted that we would ever see:

Windows and Linux operating systems running on the same PC, or a Windows •operating system running on an Apple computer1?

Sun Microsystems engineers working in an interoperability lab on the Microsoft •campus in Redmond2 ?

Document file formats that are open, standardized and freely licensed among •competitors3?

IBM, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Adobe and dozens of other vendors partnering with •and contributing to an eGovernment interoperability laboratory in Germany4?

A “Best Integration Solution” Award at a Linux World conference awarded to •Microsoft5?

Not long ago, intense competition between vendors in the IT market usually hindered this type of cooperation. Today, the competition remains intense, but the market has

matured, customer needs are more clearly expressed, and customers are demanding vendors to align better. Interoperability is a business requirement that by definition involves companies, and their engineers, to work together. As a result, the levels of cooperation have risen dramatically despite the competition that continues. Customers have deployed a wide variety of IT products in functions that need to connect and work together with increasing efficiency, and vendors work within this reality. This is true in all sectors, but especially so in the area of eGovernment with its unique combinations of interoperability needs and working environments.

We could list numerous existing solutions and best practices that we would have not predicted 10 years ago, yet still we may not be bold enough to predict the extent of evolution that will occur in the next 10 years. It is safe to say, however, that the evolution we see now in the marketplace will continue to help enable public service communities to connect in more and better ways. The interaction between eGovernment officials, citizens, and IT vendors is a vital and constructive element in this evolution.

This paper looks at this interaction, and focuses on many examples of the practical approaches underway by industry to identify and meet the needs of eGovernment now and in the future. Actions are gradually starting to catch up with good intentions in this area. The examples provided are primarily ones involving Microsoft interacting with other IT vendors and with public administrations, as we know these efforts best, but we recognize that other vendors are making additional efforts and support the same trends – as public administrations would expect.

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A new mindset favoring interoperability

Connecting public services communities requires technology, and much more. “Organizational interoperability” in part describes the challenge of actually getting people and agencies to function together – people with different organizational structures, different legacy and habits, different ideas of how things can be done most efficiently. As noted in the 2004 version of the European Interoperability Framework, “[t]his aspect of interoperability is concerned with defining business goals, modeling business processes and bringing about the collaboration of administrations that wish to exchange information and may have different internal structures and processes.” Organizational interoperability requires a determined mindset to encourage public sector organizations to work together and exchange information consistently, and that mindset is still emerging in eGovernment.

Although the motivations of other stakeholders from industry may differ, the same mental evolution is required to encourage the variety of players to work together more.

In the IT industry, that evolving mindset is occurring – sometimes more rapidly than is often broadly recognized. In part, the underlying technologies or technical trends in the last 10 years have aided the process greatly, such as the widespread use of XML, the flexibility of Service Oriented Architecture, or the promise of virtualization. But more important than the technical input is the recognition by industry players that they need to work together more to satisfy their customers’ needs, and that they need to execute – involving both the executives and the engineers of IT companies.

Most of the examples of industry cooperation mentioned at the beginning of this paper relate more to a changed mind set and a new dedication of effort to work together, and have much less to do with actual changes in technology.

Below we will discuss three broad and tangible efforts being undertaken to identify and resolve real world interoperability issues. These examples not only demonstrate the effort that has flowed from the dedication to work with customers and competitors on this issue, they also illustrate a focus on practical solutions. Beyond policy debates and competitive pressures, the real strategic goal is for products and services to function well together. This is more a practical than a political issue.

Each IT company needs to connect with its partners, its competitors, and its customers in ways that are constructive and mutually beneficial, and many companies have both established and newly created channels to use to enhance their interoperability work.

Company behavior and interests are certainly influenced by its drive for innovation and its business model (discussed more below), but the common customer demand for interoperability has helped and will continue to forge new and different channels for working together.

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Creating a Customer Community – the Interoperability Executive Customer Council

Understanding customer requirements relating to interoperability is no small task when a company deals with a customer base of enormous scale and diversity, as is the case for any global company. Microsoft has, like other companies, undertaken this challenge in ways that it did not 10 years ago. With the creation of the Interoperability Executive Customer Council (IEC Council) in 2006, Microsoft has found a way to channel input directly from customer CTOs and CIOs to the company’s product teams, through a group of diverse customers that has started to act as a community. Like any community that hopes to be sustainable, the IEC Council has become successful because of the constructive interaction among the participants, the agreement on priorities, and the strong sense that achieving useful results can continue.

This worldwide community has significant participation from European public sector administrations. These include the Dutch Ministry of Defense and seven other agencies from Brussels, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden. The participating public administrations represent regional, national, and local government interests on the Council.

These entities join the work of the IEC Council with private sector entities like Daimler AG, Siemens AG, HSBC, Société Générale, and about 30 others.

The IEC Council acts as an advisory board to senior management, identifying priority areas of concern and actively working with Microsoft engineers to shape and deliver satisfactory solutions. The IEC Council has formed 6 working groups, focusing on office and collaboration tools, systems management, security, developer tools, policy, business process and modeling. Senior architects from the IEC Council members have identified over 60 priority scenarios across the 6 workstreams, and about 60% of the scenarios have solutions in place or in progress.

The benefits of a customer-focused community seem obvious in theory, and the IEC Council has shown that the benefits can be realized in practice. The key to success has not only been the commitment of the participants, but also the direct and unfiltered access to product engineers and senior management.

Creating a Vendor Community – Interop Vendor Alliance

Direct interaction between IT vendors is also imperative to foster interoperability. This interaction occurs commonly in direct collaboration between companies, but also in communities such as traditional ones (e.g., standards organizations), and multivendor organizations like the Interop Vendor Alliance, which has a very practical orientation on testing and demonstrating interoperability solutions.

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Some current industry collaboration may seem surprising given the history of competition between industry players. But recent examples help prove the evolution in the marketplace and the common interests. When Sun Microsystems announced its first major collaboration agreement with Microsoft in 2004, Scott McNealy emphasized that the companies would be focusing on “delivering great new choices for customers who want to combine server products from multiple vendors and achieve seamless computing in a heterogeneous computing environment.”6 The mutual work between Sun and Microsoft led to another milestone in 2008, when the companies announced the creation of a joint Interoperability Lab, at which Sun engineers are working on the main Microsoft campus.

Among the many additional examples of direct collaboration with competitors on specific solutions is the Novell’s participation in an interop lab to work on Linux-Windows interoperability, and the recent announcement by IBM, Oracle, SAP, Alfresco and Microsoft about the proposal for a content management standard, being submitted to OASIS.

To a great degree, voluntary and extensive industry contribution and collaboration in the creation of open standards has gone on for a long time, and all the major IT vendors participate in hundreds of standards efforts which help reach consensus on technologies that can be implemented in interoperable products. Industry “communities” collaborating on standards is one part of the overall commitment to interoperability. Other aspects include testing products from different vendors, whether the products are based on standards or not, to identify ways to improve their operation. In addition, companies are increasingly sharing access to their proprietary technologies with competitors7 in order to improve interoperability at finer granularity. While there are many technologies that are standardized, there are also many that are not (both legacy and emerging innovative technologies), and access to a competitor’s technology facilitates mutual work between the companies to meet mutual customer needs.

In order to improve collaboration among companies providing interoperability solutions connecting with Microsoft technologies, several companies created in 2006 the Interop Vendor Alliance (IVA), a global industry group of software and hardware vendors. The IVA includes numerous competitors of Microsoft, like Sun Microsystems and Red Hat, as well as traditional partners and other open source companies. With a focus on customers that run complex, heterogeneous IT systems, the IVA’s activities include real world interoperability testing, sharing of relevant technical information, and communicating about available interoperability solutions to customers.

Serving as a collaborative forum for developing and sharing common technology models, IVA facilitates scenario-based testing of multivendor solutions. This results in case studies, white papers, webinars, and demos and labs for specific solutions (such as including system management, federated identity, content management, and document management using open formats). Since its formation in 2006, alliance membership has more than doubled, and its practical approach has proven attractive for members and their customers.

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Facilitating Public Sector Communities – Solution Sharing Networks

The examples above illustrate how vendors and users can interact to identify priority issues requiring engineering attention to find new solutions. Commonly, communities are built up by users who want to share their experiences and avoid reinventing the wheel when solutions already exist, or to use their mutual knowledge to improve efficiency relating to interoperability as well as many other issues. The logic of community building and the reuse of knowledge and solutions among public administrations is unchallenged, and has been an ideal expressed for several years. The challenge has been to achieve a critical mass of participation in communities, to attain the positive spiral caused when participants find increasing value from both providing and obtaining relevant information, solutions, code, and other material to help them do their jobs. Just like the challenge of organizational interoperability mentioned above, the challenge of public sector communities is the dedication of continuous effort by interested people.

Technology providers offer help with the technical solutions to facilitate the working of such communities, and by sharing of their own knowledge and experience with similarly situated customers. The amount and type of information that vendors share in non-commercial settings has been one of the surprising developments in the evolving IT world. However, relevant available solutions have not always been easy for public administrations to find and use. Microsoft has contributed numerous practical solutions to very broad communities such as Source Forge, for such purposes as the translation of document formats to DAISY XML, for digital inclusion purposes, and to ODF, to facilitate document interoperability, which have resulted in hundreds of thousands of downloads. The company has also established a more focused code-sharing online environment called Codeplex. But while many of the developer projects have relevance to public sector communities, the sharing environment is not tailored to public sector needs.

Microsoft has learned from public sector customers more about the types of online community environments that help them share various forms of knowledge and experiences, and also the need to make the process of sharing easier. This led to the creation of several Solution Sharing Networks (SSN), especially in Europe, that connect communities of public administrations with common purposes to share all sorts of knowledge in addition to code.

Some European public administrations that began SSN efforts earlier this decade gathered in 2006 to discuss the challenging process of community building. This gathering is recorded in a paper “Creating and Sustaining Successful Knowledge Management in Purposeful Communities - Summary of key experiences from pioneers”. This paper discusses a variety of factors relevant to creating successful communities, with a focus on “less technical, or softer aspects like leadership, culture, social settings and value of participation.”

Additional and more recent examples of Solution Sharing Networks include the efforts of eris@ and IANIS+ (for local and regional administrations across Europe), the Association of Polish Cities and the City of Lodz, and the German Association for Towns and Municipalities (Deutscher Städte-und Gemeindebund, DStGB).

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The eris@/IANIS network provides a complete portal and centralized library of information, combined with the community building spaces for interaction and sharing. One example is a project called Innovation and Change: Network of One-Stop Shops (ICHNOS) which aims to combine experiences with “one-stop shops” and simplify support for them.Interest is high among public administrations for shared solutions to fulfill the requirements of the EU Services Directive. Another project that is being shared among administrations is a prototype solution tested by the Fraunhofer FOKUS eGovernment lab, and posted on the DStGB network site. This material is also posted in English on a global SSN site. The available information includes detailed documentation, parts of the source code as well as the description of computer architecture of the prototype.

DStGB members have collaborated on other technical projects as well (examples include a spatial data system of municipal geographies, an electronic trade register, an online system of business registration, and a set of Internet portals). Participants can both contribute to and obtain existing knowledge and solution-sets from the SSN portal. The network also links in academics as well as commercial and non-commercial organizations.

Policies for an evolving IT world

Government officials considering interoperability policy have increasing opportunities to assess not only changing technology but also changing organizational behavior. The types of communities described above shape the evolving IT world in ways that the technology alone does not. They share experiences and solutions that are relevant to any assessment of needs that drives policy formulation. Communities have a long way to go to solve all interoperability issues, but they do have the agility and focus to identify and resolve practical issues in practical ways, and to distribute information and solutions in increasingly efficient ways.

Some government policies focus on the goal of enhancing interoperability, and some focus on how to achieve interoperability. The former type of policy provides the flexibility necessary for the various stakeholders to work out issues as they arise. The latter type of policy often get snarled in detailed debate, as there are often disagreements about the various means to achieve interoperability and concern about embedding narrow solutions in broad policy. Furthermore, setting forth policies about how to achieve interoperability today does not always account for changing practices as well as changing technologies.

Neutral, flexible, and practical interoperability and public procurement policies do not pre-judge the evolution of technology or the market, or favor certain types of products or vendor business models. Government efforts to shape the market may reflect certain industrial policy interests, but they should not be confused with interoperability as a goal.

In addition, pragmatic governmental agencies still seek to choose the best software and business models in a given situation based on the full range of relevant, objective criteria, including: the overall cost of procuring the software and its administration over the life of the product; interoperability; reliability; vendor support; ease of use; security; and availability of warranties and indemnities for intellectual property claims.

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Such neutral policies, in turn, drive substantial benefits for consumers, governments, and local economies. In particular, such policies encourage companies of all types – whether open source, proprietary or mixed software -- to vigorously compete for the government’s purchase decision, which, in turn, fosters greater innovation, increased customer choice, lower costs, and enhanced interoperability. This approach also results in a vibrant IT ecosystem with many different business models competing to best meet customer needs.

Policies have actively supported best practice sharing in recent years, and such information provides some of the building blocks on which communities can grow and refine solutions.

This type of practical knowledge sharing, combined with the dedicated effort of community builders, shows significant promise for continuing efforts to enhance eGovernment interoperability.

Conclusion

There is no question about the need and potential value of community building, at many levels, to support the real world work of eGovernment. Living up to the promise is still in progress, but this paper has attempted to illustrate a variety of efforts, from an industry perspective, that demonstrate the positive trends. These examples are only a snapshot, and should be seen in conjunction with the many additional efforts ongoing that involve other industry stakeholders. We cannot predict the precise form and extent of community building over the next ten years, but can expect its evolution to proceed in significant ways, and can expect surprising developments to become more and more routine.

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References

1 A program called Virtual PC 2007 enables a Windows computer to run multiple operating systems, including Linux (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/overview.mspx?wt_svl=20323a&mg_id=20323b). A program called Boot Camp enables an Apple Mac to run Windows (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html)

2 See http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-03/sunflash.20080310.1.xml and http://www.sun.com/storagetek/exchange/inc/gallery/index.xml?p=2&s=1.

3 See analyst and other papers posted at http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/whitepapers.aspx.

4 See http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/en/fokus/institut/referenzen/kunden/index.html

5 See http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/softwareServices-applications-open/5674742-1.html

6 See also Mr. McNealy’s comments following the 2004 announcement: ”We are moving beyond the past. Because fundamentally we both get the same thing: customers are in charge. And customers want us all to work better together.” http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/bradsmith/03-25osbc.mspx

7 See, for example: http://www.sisaalliance.com/ (regarding Cisco, EMC, and Microsoft collaboration on the Secure Information Sharing Architecture); http://www.duet.com/ (regarding SAP and Microsoft collaboration on interop and business process solutions); http://www.oracle.com/products/middleware/docs/interoperability-pays-dividends.pdf (regarding Oracle-Microsoft collaboration on middleware interoperability); http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/industry-leaders-create-global-standard/story.aspx?guid=%7B6ADACD55%2DF477%2D4671%2D8F99%2D69AACDC7CD3E%7D (regarding consumer digital media technology); http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/sep05/09-09SiemensSolutionsPR.mspx#http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/sep05/09-09SiemensSolutionsPR.mspx (regarding Siemens work with Microsoft on real-time communications and collaboration tools); http://www.epson.co.jp/e/newsroom/2006/news_20061113.htm (regarding sharing digital imaging technologies between Microsoft and Seiko Epson)

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4

* Alain KERAVEL is a HEC professor in the Human Resources Management Department at HEC [http://www.hec.fr] from 1992. He has been previously consultant and CEO of a multimedia research French company. Following the recent HEC politic of research laboratory creation, he found the EOLE laboratory at the beginning of 2003. Alain KERAVEL as a director and searcher of this HEC laboratory participated in the last 2 years to diverse projects, such as QUALEG, TERREGOV, IRIS Europe and EULALIE.

ABSTRACT

REPORT: “Connecting Public Services Communities” Roundtable,

In the Framework of The 21st Bled eConference “eCollaboration: Overcoming Boundaries Through Multi-Channel Interaction”,

Slovenia, June 15-18, 2008

Alain KERAVEL* Director, HEC-EOLE, France

This article is based on the content of a Roundtable gathering experts coming from different nations and fields about the development of Pan-European eGovernment services (PEGS) via connecting public service communities across Europe. The discussion took place around three main topics:

The European political willingness to lead such development;

The impact of the European commission “services” directive;

The achievements needed to foster such PEGS development (Interoperability Framework, Alliance with the service users, a global vision of such services).

The conclusion underlines the vision of interoperability as a process governed strongly by the European Commission and following successive steps.

ERPT Vol 7 - Article Cover Page Alain KERAVEL.pdf 09-10-2008 16:07:30

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rEPOrT: “CONNECTiNg PubliC SErviCES COmmuNiTiES” rOuNdTablE A. Keravel

Introduction

A great deal of progress has been achieved in developing eGovernment services in the 15 and later the 27 states. Each State has put into place a different plan for the

development of eGovernment services, based on a European Commission policy aimed at achieving the 2010 objectives set out at the convention of Lisbon. These plans and thus the level of attainment of public services differ according to the centralized or federal nature of the public authority as well as according to the laws and the working rules that underpin its domain of activity.

At the national level, at least in the majority of these States, the results of this policy are already apparent (many eGovernment services are now accessible to citizens and companies), although there is still a long way to go towards achieving efficient interoperability between the different services available. By interoperability we mean the degree to which these various services can exchange information automatically between each other, without the need for any duplication of requests by citizens and enterprises for information. This interoperability can develop either according to the devolution of competences between public authorities (PA) (for example in France between the regional, or even local and national PA) or according to a system of exchanges between agencies.

The Commission, through the nation states, has only been able to exert its political will to encourage this policy within a clearly identified territorial context, namely, at the level of the nation state. The interoperability necessary for the development of infra or supra national services has very often been ignored or only very partially achieved. The complexity deriving from the multitude of different organizations involved and the governance of these initiatives has constituted a brake to their development.

Regional interoperability is being developed currently in many member States. The European MODINIS program1 has listed some of these examples of best practice at the regional level (in Spain, Italy and many Nordic countries). Research programs under the aegis of the eGovernment ICT unit have developed various technical solutions (the integrated project TERREGOV http://www.terregov.eupm.net being one example).

In this context Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGS) have still not developed significantly, even though they feature in the i2010 project. The object of the Roundtable, reviewed in this article, was to debate the current prospects for developing pan- European eGovernment interoperable services among experts of different nationalities and expertise.

The Roundtable took place in front of 30 to 40 people during the 21st Bled eConference at the initiative of POLITECH INSTITUTE and EIPA (European Institute of Public Administration).

Three main topics were discussed by the experts: Europe’s political will to promote PEGS, the effect of the new “Service Directive” on the PEGS development and the various ways to foster the development of PEGS.

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1. Europe’s political willingness to promote PEGS (Pan-European eGovernment Services) The political will of the Slovenian European Presidency….

Under the Slovenian Presidency of the European Union Council the development of pan-European interoperable public services beyond the borders of the Member States was fixed as a priority for eGovernment. Ales Pelan of the Slovenian Ministry of Public Administration presented to the Roundtable the state of play with regard to two Pan-European services in which Slovenia participates: the delivery of residence permits and the registration of new companies.

Ales Pelan stressed the difficulty of reaching a common understanding with regard to authentication policies. He also presented the STORK project which aims to secure the use of electronic identities in Europe as a possible answer to the large range of electronic identifications currently used within Member States.

These Slovenian initiatives join older initiatives such as the Riser project presented by Irena Trsinar of the Slovene Interior Ministry. This European-wide service available in 9 countries permits the verification of the addresses of individuals (available in national registers). The project is due to be extended to 19 countries from 2010.

Under the limits required by the European governance.

C. Van Orange-Nassau of Rand Corporation made two observations:

• The development of PEGS covers a range of activities involving different domains, different regions and different sectors all of which follow their own development path with little coordination between each other;

• There is a lack of support infrastructure for pan-European policies and in particular those permitting interoperability.

He called for a genuine European program addressing these services because as in the domains of law, health, education, migration etc, they could constitute a powerful pan-European vector for integration.

The Commission plays a decisive role at all levels (politics, technology, finance, law and organization) in the setting up of such a program, but the treaty doesn’t provide a formal mandate from the member states. As a result the extension of such a program poses governance issues.

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2. The impact of the European directive on services on the development of PEGS

The creation of one stop shop to deliver eGovernment services…

The ”Services Directive” (Article 6) proposes the setting up of one single point to provide services; these single points provide easily accessible information (Article 7) and the possibility to use them to perform procedures remotely and electronically (Article 8). Member States are currently adapting their national legislation to comply with the Directive.

This development stage raises a number of issues, as pointed out by the French senator Jean Bizet2: «Not all member States have the same conception of the “one-single point system” and the role that they should play. After a presentation of the existing projects by six member States at the European expert group meeting on February 15, 2007, it was clear that there exists a huge variety of situations; it was equally obvious that not all shared the same ambitions for their “one single point system”. Moreover, in federal States, in particular, the territorial organization of this “one-single point system” poses additional difficulties «.

During the Roundtable Jens FROMM of the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication (FOKUS) listed the challenges to be surmounted to set up such single point access to eServices (language, legal and regulatory systems concerning the protection of privacy which differ from state to state; network availability, information systems and interfaces, identification, authentication, electronic signatures, mutual trust).

He also presented the first prototypes developed by FOKUS placing particular stress on the importance of interfaces.

Do not solve the PEGS interoperability

Professor Bernhard R. KATZY of CeTIM maintained that to provide interoperability it is not enough simply to create a one spot shop system for the delivery of eGovernment services in each country. Neither is it sufficient simply to create databases giving access electronically to PEGs in every country. Pan-European interoperability requires respect for the differences between domains, between concepts of privacy, between the ways expertise is shared etc. Only a federalist approach can realistically be envisaged.

3. Some levers to accelerate the development of PEGs The adoption of a common reference for interoperability

It has been observed that the adoption of shared norms is a powerful vector for integration.

Experience has shown that very often interoperability is only reached thanks to a subset of norms adopted by the greatest number (as for example was the case for XML in an internet environment permitting easy exchanges of information). The main mission of the IADBC is thus to develop a common Pan-European interoperability benchmark.

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As the network of Pan-European services is still in the process of development the value of these benchmarks towards integration has not yet been felt. According to C. van Oranje of Rand Corporation, interoperability results more from a process rather than the existence of a common norm or product. In this sense actions aimed at building mutual trust are decisive and only an open and transparent attitude in the establishment of this setting up of common benchmarks will enable such an objective to be reached.

Alliance with users (citizens and enterprises)

During the recent conference on “eGovernment” at Brdo in Slovenia (7/2/2008) the concept of an “Alliance with Users” to direct future developments of an electronic administration was proposed.

Companies and citizens are clearly waiting impatiently for some of these pan-European public services. Irena Trsinar (Riser project) noted about 115.000 000 cross-border requests about citizens or enterprises registrations, 60 0000 000 of which were between public administrations and 55 000 000 of which emanated from private enterprises. This demand concerns in particular a number of services that can be provided without the need for any real interoperability at the European level.

Bror Salmelin, of the European Commission, in his contribution proposed that users should be associated from the start through what he calls “Living Labs” which very quickly, after launch, would gain the loyalty of future users of these innovative pan-European services. The networked organization of such user communities would contribute to the creation of the type of infrastructure necessary for the extension of such PEGS.

The development of a global vision of pan-European Services

Josef MAKOLM, of the Austrian Ministry of Finance, opined that only a big picture general view will help to overcome the differences and lead towards Pan-European interoperability.

It is vital to try to understand the underlying reasons why electronic identity and electronic signatures have been developed throughout Europe in such different formats, despite the fact that the use of such diverse approaches procures no discernible benefit. Equally, it is important to explore how to overcome” cultural exceptions” such as the absence of any register of crimes and offenses in Norway, and to break through the language barrier by using new semantic approaches.

To do this it would be useful to follow the general view proposed by Maria A. Wimmer combining a range of aspects (cultural, social, political, legal, process, organizational, training, security and privacy needs, technology) with the different functions offered by PEGS (information, transaction, payment, follow-up monitoring). These functions could be explored at different levels (object, process, interaction, connection).

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Conclusion

National administrations focus very much on their own needs and follow their own logic.

Discussions at the Roundtable revealed how hard it will be to break out of this straight jacket to set up PEGS.

To achieve pan-European interoperability all partners would need to adjust their requirements and their roles to attain a common objective through a combination of a general collective approach and individual initiatives. Interoperability between administrations of EU Member States aimed at giving access to citizens and companies to a range of Pan-European services presupposes the adoption of such measures.

If one refers to the experience acquired at the time of the development of regional interoperability it is clear that this will not come about naturally, but must be actively encouraged.

It is a precondition for success that all partners, including potential users of these services, understand the objective being pursued, as well as the means deployed, and the stages that must be passed through. The arrival of the first available Pan-European Services will certainly improve the various actors’ understanding of the importance of these elements.

But this in itself will not suffice because interoperability cannot be reduced to providing an application. It requires the creation of network infrastructure and strong coordination at specific stages of the process. The national single point access advocated by the “Services Directive” is a possible way forward. It will be necessary but probably not sufficient for the attainment of this objective. The setting of common benchmarks and the early involvement of users will help towards the design of these services and their interoperability. As Josef Makolm has stressed, the key factor will be to respect the sequence of stages that lead towards genuine interoperability.

Finally, during the very short final discussion with the audience, Andreas Ebert of Microsoft underlined the theoretical necessity of exploring in greater depth the critical elements that underlie the design and the success of a PEGS. We have to better understand the process which leads to pan-European interoperability for eGovernment services.

References

1 The MODINIS final report is available at the following address : http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/docs/pdf/interop_study.pdf

2 Jean Bizet, member of the French Sénat (Report published on the7th february2008: http://www.senat.fr/rap/r07-199/r07-199_mono.html#toc33)


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fuTurE egOvErNmENT rESEarCh M. A. WimmerE D I T O R I A L D. van Lerberghe

4

* Just CASTILLO IGLESIAS joined EIPA [http://www.eipa.eu] in 2007, specializing in Public

Administration and e-Government Issues. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Administration from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, a Master's degree in European Studies with specialization in European International Politics from Maastricht University, and he is currently completing a Master's degree in East Asian Studies with specialization in East Asian Societies and International Relations at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

ABSTRACT

Good Practices of Interoperability

Just CASTILLO IGLESIAS* European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA), The Netherlands

Through the interviews to key stakeholders in cross-border interoperability, this article reviews 4 important cases from all over Europe, which are remarkable for setting good practice examples and for its pioneer character. The interviewees commented on the key success factors and risks of each of the projects and the importance of the multidimensionality of interoperability.


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111

gOOd PraCTiCES Of iNTErOPErabiliTy J. C. Iglesias

Introduction

Cross-Border Interoperability is a key enabler for achieving an Internal Market without electronic barriers and an essential element to enhancing mobility of citizens and

businesses across Europe. The long road towards transforming projects for Pan-European eServices into a reality comprises the combined efforts of practitioners, policy-makers, researchers, as well as the public and the private sectors. The multidimensionality of interoperability entails that multiple actors are involved in interoperability projects and that work is carefully structured in different stages or thematic steps.

This article presents the experiences and projects of five key stakeholders for interoperability who were interviewed and agreed to share their views and opinions on the subject: Dr. Bernhard Katzy (The University of Leiden, The Netherlands), Mr. Josef Makolm (Federal Ministry of Finance, Austria), Prof. Dr. Rimantas Gatautis (Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania) and Ms. Signe Balina (Special Assignments for Electronic Government Affairs Ministry, Latvia).

The Aladin Cross-Border Region

The first of our interviewees, Dr. Bernhard Katzy, representative from the University of Leiden in The Netherlands, presented the Cross-Border eRegion project - carried out in cooperation with the Alpen Adria University at Klagenfurt (AT) - a living Laboratory named ALADIN, bringing together universities from the Alp-Adriatic Region (from Munich to the Adriatic sea) on topics related to cross-border eGovernment. The key areas of concern are mainly crisis management and education.

For Dr. Katzy, cross-border cooperation always leads to barriers and obstacles, which are to be overcome by enabling interoperability. In the case of the ALADIN project, interoperability issues range from the frequency of police or fire brigades, to the availability of material facilities, organizational levels or even radio frequencies, and for Dr. Katzy, collaboration at all levels - from the organizational and governmental levels down to the technological administration - is the principle success factor for interoperability.

Lithuanian eGovernment Interoperability Framework

Prof. Dr. Rimantas Gatautis, from the Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania is participating in the project “Lithuanian eGovernmental Interoperability Framework Development” funded by the Ministry of Interior and the State Sciences and Studies Foundation. Dr. Gatautis acknowledged that the main challenge of the project is working together with the Ministry of the Interior and the twelve other ministries, plus the sixteen governmental organizations and their information systems. Trying to understand how all the involved organizations work and how they can cooperate together is the main aim and objective.

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The critical success factors for this project are enabling people to talk and exchange their ideas leading to a common understanding, since the project started enthusiastically, but with vague ideas and knowledge of the systems.

The key point, for Dr. Gatautis, is to find the common understanding and cooperation between the different involved actors, as well as observing and taking example from best practices found in neighboring European countries by paying special attention both to the Interoperability Framework and also to experiences from Norway, Belgium, Germany, Greece and the UK that could be helpful for setting up Lithuania’s eGovernment Interoperability Framework.

Latvia’s eGovernment Portfolio

In June 2008, the Latvian Minister for electronic affairs, Signe Balina, exposed the plans through which the Latvian government would introduce 25 new ‘interinstitutional’ eServices.

Ms. Balina presented the project “eGovernment Portfolio”, which comprised 28 eServices resulting from the electronization and collaboration between different institutions. The project was initiated in February 2008 with a process of integration between the information systems of the Ministry of the Interior and the state registers into the so-called ISIS (Integrated State Information System). Also in February 2008, the first interdepartmental electronic pilot was launched. After the testing period, the 26 eServices became available in the first quarter of the year.

Minister Balina has reflected on the importance that interoperability plays in developing a system able to work with the data of the different governmental bodies involved. Because of this, before building the ISIS, there was a search for similar experiences in other countries, particularly in the other Baltic States. The ISIS is built by integrating the information from the existing registers. The integration process is designed to guarantee access to all the systems, even in the case of failure of one of the systems, in order to assure the constant accessibility of the system.

Thus, the software platform should be based on the following principles:

The technological standard of integration should be prevalent, i.e. independent of •different software technologies;

The integration standard should be based on the best world-scale experiences •and correspond to a standard which is currently accepted and developed by international level IT companies;

The integration software should be scalable: have the possibility to increase its •performance without complex reprogramming work;

Integration software should have guaranteed development perspectives by the •producer;

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As the integration software will simultaneously become the environment in which •eServices are developed, there should be a possibility to modify these eServices or rebuild them from the beginning, putting in as least programming work as possible.

For Minister Balina, the main problems encountered while creating the interdepartmental services can be divided into 3 categories that include the semantic, organizational and technical levels.

Referring to the semantic level, the success depends on the fact that everyone •involved understands the meaning and essence of data provided by a data provider;

On the organizational level, the initial access for data exchange between institutions •was based upon creating a solution for a specific need (e. g. for services). Institutions that are not used to exchanging data with other institutions do not always tend to invest means into unification of working data. Thus, by creating services on the basis of centralized infrastructure, departments want to keep the control over their data (IS services) and each specific case of usage of these data;

Thirdly, on the technical level, for some period of time institutions have been •developing information systems of their own. Institutions possess a strongly engrained instinct of personal identity and not only wish to keep control over their data, but also have the tendency to consider themselves as the owners, and not the keepers or managers of the data that they have in possession. Despite legislation stating that Institutions have no rights to ask residents to submit the information already collected and placed into State information systems, it is still necessary to conduct educational and explanatory work to encourage the cooperation between Institutions in the name of the common goal – bringing benefits to the residents.

Minister Balina acknowledges that national interoperability is the necessary layer to achieve cross-border interoperability at the European level and to implement an internal Market without electronic barriers and complying with the EC Services directive. She refers to the example of Latvia’s initiative to set up a point of single contact using the portal www.latvija.lv. The remodeling of this portal as a point of single contact, according to Minister Balina, is a good example of simplifying public administration to eliminate burdens for citizens and businesses by providing access to the internet resource section of the state government institutions as well as to the eServices sections developed by the Secretariat.

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The Peppol Project

Mr. Josef Makolm, from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance presented the PEPPOL project, a pilot launched by the European Commission aiming to create the conditions for linking the existing national eProcurement systems. The acronym of the project is Pan European Public Procurement Online. The project started in May 2008 and has duration of three years.

The pilot on eProcurement, thus, will be presented in 2011 – remarks Mr. Makolm.

The PEPPOL project has a budget of €20 million, and currently has eight countries involved: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Norway. However, the project’s doors remain open to other countries that may want to join at a later stage.

The project has been designed in eight work packages:

WP1 is about “Digital identity and eSignature”;•

WP2 is named “Virtual company dossier”, which will provide interoperable solutions •for economic operators in any European country to utilize company information already registered somewhere, in order to submit certificates and attestations electronically to any procurement agency. Professor Maria Wimmer from the University of Koblenz, was asked to take the lead in WP2;

WP3 is called “eCatalogue” and will define and test solutions to manage •eCatalogues;

WP4 is about “eOrdering”;•

WP5 is called “eInvoicing”. It will benchmark existing eInvoicing processes for the •payment of goods and services and implement pilot arrangements on the data and process level for the exchange of eInvoicing documents between all relevant stakeholders;

WP6 is on “Project management”. This WP is more than project marketing •because we want to attract future partners. Our ambition is to get, more or less, every Member State. At least, we created a reference group for them to get more information and join the consortium later;

WP7 is named “• Consensus and awareness building”;

Finally, we have WP8 “• Solutions architecture, design and validation”.

Mr. Makolm acknowledged that interoperability is, indeed, the major issue of the PEPPOL project. The Manchester Declaration foresees that by 2010, all public administrations across Europe will have the capacity to carry out 100% of the procurement electronically.

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This means that there is a strong need to achieve interoperability between the public and the private sectors. PEPPOL aims to attract big companies, big players, but also small enterprises. The challenges of this project are to enhance interoperability, also within the EU and the Members of the EEC – such as Norway – to participate in the project, and also to give a major role to the small and medium enterprises rather than the larger companies.

Concluding Remarks

Through this set of interviews, these five practitioners of interoperability have stressed the outmost importance of paying equal attention to the three levels of interoperability: technical, organizational and semantic.

Cross-border interoperability depends on many factors, and the technical level is just one more level to take into account; not the only one or even the most important one. Semantic and organizational aspects of interoperability also constitute key success factors and imperative conditions for the success of these projects.

For the time being, it is important to say that it will be worth keeping an eye on the development and sure success of the abovementioned projects, which are contributing so actively to spreading valuable know-how in cross-border interoperability.

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PERUSE ERPT’S PREVIOUS VOLUMES

@< w w w . p o l i t e c h - i n s t i t u t e . o r g / r e v i e w . a s p >

VOLUME 1 – Governance & Democracy in Cyberspace – March 2005

VOLUME 2 – eCampaigns – June 2005

VOLUME 3 – IPR & eGov Interoperability in Europe – December 2005

VOLUME 4 – Fostering Public Sector Performance in Europe – July 2007

V

VOLUME 6

OLUME 5 –

– –

T

Transformational Government & Shared Services in Europe

owards a Common eGov Research Agenda in Europe – F

March 2008

ebruary 2008

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