An electronic point of single contact - a requirement of the European Union's Services Directive - which allows aspiring service providers to obtain relevant information and by electronic means complete all procedures relating to their activities has not yet been set up by the Maltese authorities, The Times Business has learnt.
The EU Services Directive, which entered into force on December 28, aims to break down barriers to cross border trade in services between countries in the EU.
Like the other EU member states Malta implemented the directive within the required time frame but has not yet put in place the electronic point of single contact because the tender process for this facility is still being evaluated. However, it should be in place by the first or second quarter of this year.
A spokesman for Finance Minister Tonio Fenceh told The Times Business:
"In order to be able to offer the fully electronic application and authorisation processes a new platform was required and this was tendered for by MITA. The tender is still being evaluated and therefore we had to put in place a stop-gap facility to try and meet as much as possible the requirements of the directive by the December 28 deadline.
"This was done by enhancing the 'business' part of the eGov website and including pages which identified all the authorisation process falling within the scope of the directive and then linking each of these processes to a specific page (pdf) giving the information that was collected from each competent authority as well as the necessary forms to submit an application (but not online).
"This information is in some cases still being collected and will need to be updated as procedures will be changing in the coming weeks with the coming into force of subsidiary legislation regulating these service activities."
The directive's requirement is for an electronic point of single contact which may however be integrated into a physical business support facility. The spokesman added: "When considering the options for setting up the point of single contact in Malta it was always felt that this should naturally be integrated into a business support centre or a one-stop-shop, however, no one structure did then meet these functions and so we opted to go for an electronic point of single contact with a view to eventually widen and integrate this into a fully-fledged Business Support Bureau such as the one recently announced by Malta Enterprise."
The spokesman said it is envisaged that the new e-Forms platform being procured by MITA will be in place by the end of the first or beginning of the second quarter 2010 and "it will provide all the necessary facilities for online applications, tracking of processes and eventual authorisation".