Interoperability solutions for public administration, businesses and citizens: Benefits from joining EU program

Event report

[Read more session reports and live updates from the 2nd Western Balkan Digital Summit]

Mr Emanuele Baldacci (Director of Digital Services, DG Informatics, European Commission) opened his presentation by addressing challenges governments face when adopting new digital services and ultimately transitioning to a digital environment. He referenced the Tallinn Declaration, which recognized that the digital transformation of public administration can be greatly facilitated by interoperability (IoP). He explained how interoperability allows governments to exchange public information store in their databases with each other in an easy and usable fashion – using the analogy of “plug and play,” that is nearly universally designed today within computer hardware.

Baldacci then moved to highlighting the benefits that implementing the European Interoperability Framework, which emphasises legal, organizational, semantic, and technical interoperability with the goal of streamlining data sharing between government ministries and institutions. It is also meant to promote a holistic approach to interoperability, cross-regional, cross-sectoral and user-centric public administrations, as well as identify, create, and operate interoperability systems and solutions. He also informed about additional resources the framework provides, including an observatory that gathers research and best practices for interoperability, and by underscoring that it is already available to Western Balkan economies. He closed by inviting everyone to the Sharing & Reuse Conference, which will be held in Bucharest, Romania, on 11 June 2019.

By Michael J. Oghia