Council Conclusions on the Special Report No. 24/2022 of the European Court of Auditors entitled ‘e-Government actions targeting businesses - Commission’s actions implemented, but availability of e-services still varies across the EU’ 2023/C 114/02
Date: 2023-03-20
Institutions: Council of the European Union
Subjects: European Court of Auditors, administrative formalities, business policy, data protection, data transmission, digital single market, digital transformation, electronic government, public service, report








C_2023114EN.01000201.xml










29.3.2023   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 114/2






COUNCIL CONCLUSIONS
on the Special Report No. 24/2022 of the European Court of Auditors
entitled ‘e-Government actions targeting businesses - Commission’s actions implemented, but availability of e-services still varies across the EU’
(2023/C 114/02)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
RECALLING its conclusions on improving the examination of special reports drawn up by the Court of Auditors in the context of the discharge procedure (1);
TAKES NOTE of the Special Report No. 24/2022 by the European Court of Auditors entitled: ‘e-Government actions targeting businesses - Commission’s actions implemented, but availability of e-services still varies across the EU ’;
TAKES NOTE of the conclusions and recommendations of the Special Report;
RECALLS its ‘Conclusions on the e-Government Action Plan 2016-2020: accelerating the Digital Transformation of Government’ (2), calling for specific, realistic and measurable targets in the Action Plan and coherence between the actions and the concerned financial instruments that could assist the Member States in achieving the digital transformation;
RECOGNISES in particular that:






a)


the e-Government Action Plan 2016-2020 did not have an attributed budget and, as observed by the ECA, the promotion of developed solutions was mainly limited to the activities as planned in the individual actions and an exchange on best practices between Member States;










b)


the Commission monitored the output of its actions and it did not monitor comprehensively the outcomes or impacts of the overall action plan beyond the outputs of the individual actions;




RECALLS the good cooperation between the European Commission and the Member States, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, on advancing eGovernment at the EU and national levels for over a decade, in particular through the eGovernment Action Plans, with the aim of transforming public administrations by using digital technology;
WELCOMES that the Commission has accepted all the recommendations of the Special Report;
RECALLS that the COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of resilient, interoperable digital public services;
WELCOMES the timely adoption of the Decision establishing the 2030 Policy Programme ‘Path to the Digital Decade’ by the Council, the Parliament and the Commission;
INVITES the Member States to develop their national roadmaps and trajectories towards reaching the target that key public services, as defined in the Digital Decade Policy Programme, should be available online by 2030;
RECALLS that after the publication of the second report on the ‘State of the Digital Decade’ by the Commission and every second year thereafter, the Member States concerned shall submit adjustments to their national roadmaps consisting of policies, measures and actions they intend to undertake in order to reach the digital targets;
INVITES the Council and the European Parliament for a swift adoption of the Interoperable Europe Act (3) laying down measures to achieve a high level of public sector interoperability across the Union and the Proposal for a Regulation establishing a framework for a European Digital Identity (4);
CALLS ON the Commission to ensure coherence between the required actions and the relevant financial instruments that could assist the Member States in achieving the digital transformation of their public services;
INVITES the Commission to develop a comprehensive strategy for the effective promotion of the e-Government services targeting businesses across the Union;
INVITES the Member States and the Commission to pay attention to the conclusions and recommendations of the Special Report and encourages them to carefully examine those recommendations.


(1)  Doc. 7515/00 + COR 1.

(2)  Doc. 11801/16.

(3)  Doc. 14973/22.

(4)  Doc. 9471/21.