Elsevier

Decision Support Systems

Volume 34, Issue 3, February 2003, Pages 305-313
Decision Support Systems

Technology push, legislation pull? E-government in the European Union

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9236(02)00123-9Get rights and content

Abstract

E-government is new on the European agenda. Member states have announced plans to a more open, accessible and transparent administration by using the latest in information technology. Yet, the current situation is far from that. Hardly coordinated projects and the notorious individualism of the member states probably describe the state of affairs best. The paper assesses the status quo of e-government in the European Union and explains the current problems by missing coordination in legislature.

Introduction

The European Summits at Lisbon (March 2000) and Feira (June 2000) put a European initiative for e-government on the agenda. It consists of four main tasks: firstly, the development of Internet-based services to improve access to public information and services; secondly, the improvement of transparency of public administration by using the Internet; thirdly, full exploitation of information technology within public administration; fourthly, establishing e-procurement [3].

However, as often, there is a wide gap between the announcement of such an ambitious project and its realisation. Therefore, this paper sets out to contrast the plans for future e-government with the current state of affairs in the European Union. To this end, we will first assess the situation in each of the European Union member states, focusing on the organisational body entrusted with e-government projects and on the trigger events for this development. In fact, both differ considerably between the countries. We conjecture that these differences may explain differences in aims, procedures, and status quo of the individual states. In the next section, we discuss the current main issues that the member countries target with their national programmes.

Broadly speaking, any initiative that is intended to have effect in all countries of the European Union requires an appropriate legal background. Without this common ground, the projects are likely to lead to individual solutions that fall short of serving the envisaged “European perspective.” Drawing from the case of Austrian telecommunication law as an example for many, we describe the problems that arise from privatising formerly state-run organisations without jeopardising the citizens' supply or healthy competition in the field. The last section describes the problems with—and without—a centralised decision and the impact on European Union issues.

Section snippets

Overview

The report by Chatrie and Wraight [1] provides a good summary of the activities of governments in the European Union concerning e-government and related issues. This synopsis, however, suffers the major drawback that it misses the opportunity for comparative analysis.

A second problem lies in the fact that Chatrie and Wraight [1] rely on self-reports provided by the respective member states. Quite generally, such self-projection is often suspected to stress strengths and merits and play down

Central issues of telecommunication law—the case of Austria

Until the year 1993 the Austrian telecommunication law was determined by the Telecommunication Act 1949 (Fernmeldegesetz 1949). In this case the state held a monopoly in the field of telecommunication, administered through the post and telegraph administration (Post-und Telegraphenverwaltung). Joining the European Economic Area necessitated the adjustment of community law's requirement before European Union membership already. Thus, the Telecommunication Act 1993 (Fernmeldegesetz 1993) brought

European Union legal procedures—a handicap?

In the most recent history the e-Commerce directive and the regulation of telecom law in several directives of the European Council can also be seen as a success of community legislation. Nevertheless, the age of electronic enlightenment in the field of public administration has not come yet. Real and effective e-government requires an EC-law foundation to establish basic rights of the citizens to communicate via e-media with the authorities (what is called “C 2 G” in the newspeak of

Conclusions and outlook

The present article shows that the current projects concerning e-government in individual member countries of the European Union are difficult to sell off as a harmonised approach. Instead, the picture is colourful, but somewhat uncoordinated. We conjecture that this problem mainly arises from the fact that the initiative is essentially left to the individual member states.

Our survey shows that problems already start at the very beginning. The impetus to engage in electronic government projects

Michael Theil has received his doctorate with honours from the University for Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria. He is currently associate professor at the same university. His research areas include European integration, electronic business, risk management, and insurance. Regularly updated information is available at http://www.theil.ac.

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Michael Theil has received his doctorate with honours from the University for Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria. He is currently associate professor at the same university. His research areas include European integration, electronic business, risk management, and insurance. Regularly updated information is available at http://www.theil.ac.

Gerhard Strejcek has received his doctorate from the law faculty at the University of Vienna. He is currently associate professor at the same university. His research areas include electronic government, constitutional law, and European integration. Further information about lectures is available at http://www.univie.at.

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