Malta second in the league

A report by Helena Spongenberg in the Brussels-based EUOBSERVER claims that Malta moved fastest up the league table of EU member states when it comes to offering online public services to its citizens. Quoting a survey which has just been published, Spongenberg said that Malta has surged from 16th last year to second place this year. Estonia moved from eighth to a shared third place with Sweden.

The EU's newest member states have shot among the top of the class, a new survey published on June 29 shows. However, it is old member state Austria which is top of the podium. "The Austrian 'e-Government platform' is the best in the class," the report said. EUOBSERVER said that the report was conducted for the European Commission by IT company Capgemini, which analysed thousands of Websites in the EU-25, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, in areas such as tax, social services and construction permits. New member states are implementing a major drive to bring their e-Services performance up to the level of that in the 15 old member states which have been in the race for longer.

The survey reveals a modest but constant six per cent average growth in online public services in old member states while growth in the new member states is up by an average 10 percentage points.

EUOBSERVER also quotes EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding as having welcomed the results but added that she hoped they would encourage member states to take further steps on offering public services online. "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," she said in a statement.