The Single Digital Gateway Regulation was adopted by the European Parliament and Council on 3 October. As of end 2020, the gateway will become the online access point for citizens and business in need of information to get active in any EU Member State. It will be known and promoted to the general public as ‘Your Europe’. The new tool will provide reliable and verified search results about a great host of rules, rights, procedures and high-quality help services. In addition, users will be able to perform a number of these procedures fully online and enjoy the benefits of the once-only principle.
On 3 October 2018, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Regulation establishing the Single Digital Gateway, heralding a fundamental change in the way Europeans search and find information on their rights and the rules they have to abide by, as well as in the way they access online procedures and help services. The gateway will serve as a portal where users can easily submit their questions and obtain straightforward answers in just one click, therefore avoiding browsing different websites. As a result, citizens and business will enjoy clarity, order and security when they deal with everyday procedures like registering a birth certificate or paying social security. The burdensome paperwork load will be profoundly alleviated, boosting cross-border activity.
An essential element of the Single Digital Gateway will be an upgrade of the portal Your Europe introduced more than thirteen years ago. The revamped tool that will be launched at the end of 2020 will preserve the same name but increase its scope. In addition to information on EU rules, which Your Europe currently offers, it will provide much more detailed information on national rules as well as links to procedures and assistance services by signposting to the right national or local websites. The Commission will work together with Member States to ensure that the information at hand is complete, up-to-date and user-friendly. In order to be accessible to any EU citizen, all information will be available in English.
One of the most significant improvements for citizens and companies is the inclusion of 21 procedures that Member States have to provide fully online by 2023. This means the user must be able to perform all the steps via electronic means, without having to submit paper documents or queue at a local office.
Closely connected to this requirement, the once-only principle will also help users save time. This principle implies that citizens and companies can request the reuse of information between public administrations, even if these administrations are not located in the same Member State. A technical system will be developed to support automated exchange of information.
Given that the new gateway aims at removing online barriers within the single market, no citizen or business will suffer discrimination on the basis of nationality when they try to carry out one of the procedures that are already online. Basic steps like filling in forms or paying fees will have to be made just as easy for foreign users as they are for national users.
To make all this work, the Commission will need to develop a number of IT tools and to ensure their interoperability with Member States’ systems. The ISA² Programme supports this project by funding the development of an architecture for the gateway as well as the development of specific IT tools that could be used by EU Member States to implement the Regulation’s requirements on the digitalisation of procedures.
Join ISA²’s collaborative platform to find, reuse and share a wealth of ready-to-use interoperability solutions for eGovernment and best practices and discuss with your peers!
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