The report, which was carried out by IT company Capgemini, analysed thousands of websites in areas such as tax, social services and construction permits in the EU member states as well as Norway, Switzerland and Iceland.
The outstanding result obtained by Malta reflected a trend whereby the new member states shot upwards in the provision of online public services to their citizens as part of their efforts to implement eServices up to the level of that of the 15 older member states.
Nevertheless, one of the old members, Austria, managed to top the podium. Another new member state, Estonia, moved from eighth to a shared third place with Sweden.
The survey reveals a constant 6 per cent average growth in online public services in old member states, whilst growth is up by an average 10 percentage points in the new member states.
The report also outlined that many billions of euros could be saved for European taxpayers every year through administrative modernisation across the 25 EU Member States.
"On-line service delivery is now a mature service delivery model in the EU, and a new paradigm of 'intelligent', user-oriented e-services is beginning to emerge," EU commissioner for information society and media Viviane Reding said while welcoming the findings.
She went on to express her hope that the results would encourage member states to take further steps on offering public services online.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Chris Galea
Quelle/Source: di-ve, 30.06.2006
