The Knowledge Worker Desktop.

In my last post I mentioned that over the last four short months the Obama Administration has attracted a lot of attention through a number of WEB initiatives embracing “Government 2.0” as a concept for providing better two-way communication with the public. All this is explained by the Obama Administration in fairly easy to understand layman’s terms.

Europe’s initiatives are a bit more difficult to decipher and clearly written by bureaucrats with a mix of bureaucratic speak and IT speak.

Nevertheless it is worth a read and it will clearly affect e-government initiatives for all countries within the European Union. Below are selected excerpts from several sources.

The European initiatives seem to still be focused on coordinating standards between countries rather than any bold initiatives from the EU commission for a centralized approach for how to improve servicing the public and provide a two-way communication with the private sector and ordinary citizens.

Some European countries are certainly looking into how to optimize their IT infrastructure across agencies and departments. Denmark is often singled out by several analysts as having the boldest approach, driven by the Danish Ministry of Finance.

From 2005-2009 the European Commission have funded a program called IDABC.

IDABC stands for Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens.

It was formed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies:

• to encourage and support the delivery of cross-border public sector services to citizens and enterprises in Europe,
• to improve efficiency and collaboration between European public administrations and,
• to contribute to making Europe an attractive place to live, work and invest.

To achieve its objectives, IDABC issues recommendations, develops solutions and provides services that enable national and European administrations to communicate electronically while offering modern public services to businesses and citizens in Europe.

The program also provides financing to projects addressing European policy requirements, thus improving cooperation between administrations across Europe.

National public sector policy-makers are represented in the IDABC program’s management committee and in many expert groups. This makes the program a unique forum for the coordination of national e-government policies.

On 30 April 2009, the European Commission adopted the sixth revision of the IDABC Work Program. The IDABC work program is scheduled to come to an end on 31 December 2009.

As one of the outcomes of this effort the European Commission in Sept. 2008 published a Draft Document as the basis for the European Interoperability Framework Version 2. This document, which was debated extensively by EU member states, introduced a number of concepts that complement the interoperability framework, such as the interoperability strategy, the interoperability architectural guidelines and the European Infrastructure Interoperability Services (or EIIS).

On 29 September 2008, the European Commission approved a proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers on a new program for the period 2010–15 “Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations”, to be known as ISA.

This program is the follow-on of IDABC which will come to an end on 31 December 2009.

The ISA program is focusing on back-office solutions supporting the interaction between European public administrations and the implementation of Community policies and activities.

The adopted text is available here in Part 2 from p.280 to 293.

The Council of Ministers is expected to vote on the compromise proposal in June 2009.