Hungary was ranked fifth in the EIU's survey of 11 countries, just behind Poland and ahead of Turkey. At the top, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have clearly pulled away from the rest of the field, and their e-government services and infrastructure "now compare favorably with the rest of the EU," according to the EIU. Hungary received relatively high marks for its overall business and legal environment relevant to e-business and e-government, as well as for IT education and skills present in the economy and across the government sector. Hungary, as well as Romania, has a large pool of talented programmers, despite relatively less-developed IT infrastructure, according to the EIU.
Connectivity and technology infrastructure in Hungary - including public Internet access points - was found to be poor in absolute terms, but still compared favorably with most countries in the region. The same was true for Hungary's progress in "e-democracy," the use of electronic means to promote public participation in governance.
Hungary was ranked a commendable third in the region in terms of government policy and vision related to e-government. However, the EIU notes that Hungary, along with Slovakia and Bulgaria, was among slow movers on "the e-vision thing," as a comprehensive information society plan for the period through 2006 wasn't completed until last year, lagging several years behind the rest of the region.
In addition, the EIU points out that Hungary's government "has been very slow to implement procurement programs for government departments, reflecting the sluggish development of the country's overall information society objectives."
In more criticism, the survey singles out Hungary when arguing that not all of the region is equally committed to the end-to-end e-government philosophy. According to the EIU, Hungary needs to invest more effort in building complete transaction processes for interacting with the state.
"Government portals are largely informational, rather than transactional, and there has been little development of such vital aspects of e-business tools as VAT registration, customs services or public procurement," according to the survey. Hungary was tied for sixth based on the quality of online public services for citizens, and dead last in terms of online public services available for businesses.
In general remarks for the region, the EIU stresses that new and prospective EU members "are moving vigorously to shift administrative operations to online platforms," but poor fixed-line and IT infrastructure "remain a massive impediment to the realization of e-government goals in the region, among fast and slow movers alike."
Quelle: Interfax, 28.09.2004
