EFTA-Programmes-23-déoupe 15/11/07 13:52 Page 57 The following is an abstract of the EFTA Bulletin “EFTA Guide to EU Programmes (2007-13)” published November 2007.The full Bulletin contains descriptions of all the 2007-2013 programmes,together with good practice examples and a section on how to apply for funding. The full Bulletin is available on the EFTA Secretariat’s website:http://www.efta.int/ Data Interchange – IDABC IDABC stands for Interoperable Delivery of European stakeholders has been increasingly taking place eGovernment Services to Public Administrations, electronically and all administrations taking part in the Businesses and Citizens. It encourages and supports the European Economic Area would have to be reached delivery of cross-border public sector services to citizens through interoperable systems. and enterprises in Europe and fosters efficiency and collaboration between European public administrations. In order to achieve its objectives, IDABC issues recommendations, develops solutions and provides Who can apply? services that enable national and European administrations to communicate electronically while offering modern public services to businesses and This programme primarily targets the public sector, citizens in Europe. But IDABC activities are not particularly national authorities and EU institutions. limited to producing guidelines, they also entail Enterprises and organisations can also apply for some planning and implementing infrastructures to support actions. Projects shall include as many participating interoperability. countries as possible. The programme supports projects of common interest Previous programmes and horizontal measures: The first programme on the interchange of data between • Projects of common interest (PCIs): IDABC is 1 administrations in the Community (IDA) started in 1995. primarily a support programme for projects of The objective of the programme was to achieve a high common interest that implement European degree of interoperability between trans-European eGovernment services over 14 specific policy areas telematic networks established between the EU Member such as agriculture, education, transport and the States and the Community institutions to support the environment to name just a few. More than 40 PCIs establishment of the economic and monetary union and are being supported by the IDABC. Examples of the implementation of Community policies. The PCIs are the ADNS (pan-European Animal Disease programme was prolonged to 2002 because the need for Notification System), CARE (Community Road BULLETIN 2 - 2007 EFTA an exchange of information between the EU Member Accident Database) or COWEBS (a multilingual States had increased due to the mobility of European Internet portal, that pools social security citizens. Consequently, citizens and enterprises should information for migrant workers from national and also benefit from the added value created by the increased European sources). interoperability of trans-European networks between the • Horizontal measures (HM): interoperability is a key administrations of the EU Member States. factor in all of IDABC’s horizontal measure activities. The implementation of pan-European eGovernment The EEA EFTA States have participated in IDA requires the collaboration of public administrations in programmes since their beginning in 1997. the 30 Member States of the European Economic Area and in the EU institutions. Horizontal measures IDABC 2005-2009 develop technical specifications, standards and infrastructure components in order to ensure efficient The activities of IDA were taken over in 2004 by the cross-border service delivery. The horizontal measures IDABC programme. As the name indicates, the pursue 6 different objectives: interchange of data between administrations, administrations and businesses, and administrations - Horizontal Pan-European eGovernment Services and citizens was put on an equal footing because (PEGS) cover horizontal services to businesses administrative communication between these and citizens; EFTA-Programmes-23-déoupe 15/11/07 13:52 Page 58 EFTA good practice SOLVIT, Effective Problem Solving in the Internal Market SOLVIT is an alternative dispute resolution mechanism that was set up in 2002 to help EU citizens and businesses that have been denied the possibility to exercise their European Internal Market rights because a public administration in another EU Member State has misapplied Internal Market legislation. The SOLVIT system operates in all official languages of the EU, and has also been translated into Norwegian and Icelandic. The system operates through a network of SOLVIT centres based in the national administration of EU Member States along with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Applicants should contact their local home SOLVIT centre, where the details of their complaint will be fully analysed. The home SOLVIT centre will then enter the case into an online database system, allowing it to be forwarded automatically to the “lead” SOLVIT centre in the EEA country where the problem occurred. The lead SOLVIT centre should confirm within one week whether or not it will accept the case. The target deadline for finding a solution to the problem is 10 weeks. The 2 SOLVIT centres involved liaise with each other during the period of investigation and the home SOLVIT centre keeps the plaintiff informed of any progress and proposed solution. Technical development of the system and end-user training within national administrations are financed under the IDA programme. 2 - Basic infrastructures provide the basis for importance of enhanced interoperability between reliable exchanges of information between administrations and the harmonised implementation of public sector administrations; common procedures in all EU Member States with the - Security measures facilitate secure cross-border European Economic Area, it can be foreseen that delivery of pan-European eGovernment activities in this field will continue to be supported by services; Community programmes beyond this date. - Interoperability measures establish principles, EFTA BULLETIN 2 - 2007 EFTA provide guidelines and – increasingly – list specific technical solutions that improve cross- Contact points border eGovernment; - Dissemination and spread of good practice European Commission measures promote and inform about IDABC http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/ activities (for instance in open source software); - Strategic and support activities aim to improve SOLVIT Centre Iceland the execution of the IDABC programme. http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/site/index_is.htm/ Office of Trade and Transport Duration of the programme http://www.aht.llv.li/ The decision on the present programme has been in SOLVIT Centre Norway force since 1 January 2005 and will end on 31 http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/site/index_no.htm/ December 2009. However, due to the increasing.