PURPOSE: to establish a single digital gateway to
ensure that citizens and businesses have easy online access to the
information, procedures and assistance and problem solving services
they need for the exercise of their rights in the internal
market.
PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament
and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European
Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative
procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.
BACKGROUND: the Single Market is one of Europes
key achievements making it possible for people, goods, services and
capital to move more freely. However, significant obstacles exist
for both citizens and businesses interested in moving to, selling
products or providing services in another EU country. Finding
relevant, accurate and understandable information online is crucial
for those willing to use the advantages of the Single Market, but
often remains complicated.
The European Parliament and the Council have
repeatedly called for a more comprehensive, more user friendly
package of information and assistance to help businesses navigate
the single market and to strengthen and streamline single market
tools in order to better meet the needs of citizens and businesses
in their cross-border activities.
Against the background of the Services
Directive, the Digital
Single Market and the e-Government
action plan, the proposal builds on these existing services
with a view to further improving the functioning of the Single
Market for all EU citizens and businesses.
IMPACT ASSESSMENT: the chosen option is the
EU-coordinated approach which leaves Member States free as to where
they provide the required information online. They would only need
to provide the links of the relevant websites to a central
Commission repository, from which a common search facility would
pick them up and present them to the user in reply to a search.
This option is considered to be most likely to achieve the
objectives efficiently and in a proportionate way, while maximising
the benefits for stakeholders.
CONTENT: the proposed Regulation responds to calls by
offering citizens and businesses easy access to information,
procedures and assistance and problem solving services they need
for the exercise of their rights in the internal market. It seeks
to establish a single digital gateway in the context of which the
Commission and competent authorities would play an important role
in achieving those objectives.
The proposal, inter alia:
- establishes the single digital gateway and defines its
scope;
- establishes obligations on Member States and the
Commission in relation to the provision of information;
- reaffirms the principle on non-discrimination in
relation to online procedures by requiring Member States to make
existing online procedures accessible to users from other Member
States;
- allows Member States to extend the offer of assistance
and problem solving services by including in the gateway services
offered by private or semi-private entities;
- clarifies the conditions which the online procedures
should meet in order to be accessible by non-national users (such
as the availability of instructions in another language,
recognition of e-ID, esignatures and e-seals);
- establishes the mechanism for the monitoring of the
quality of the information, procedures and assistance services to
which the gateway links;
- requires Member States to appoint national
coordinators and entrusts them with specific responsibilities
related to the gateway;
- establishes the gateway coordination
group.
BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS: the costs of implementing this
Regulation would be EUR 109 million of initial investment costs and
around EUR 8 million of annual running costs for all Member States
and the Commission together. The initial investment costs would be
partially offset in one year by savings of cross-border businesses
in additional translation and certification fees and consultancy
costs of an estimated EUR 86 million. For the countries that have
the fewest procedures online, digitalising the remaining procedures
would cost EUR 6.6 million. To put this expense in context, this is
about 2 to 4% of the 2014-2020 ESIF funding they have allocated to
e-government.