Along with Austria, Ireland, Italy, Malta and Sweden, Portugal is one of the best performing countries in the European Union, in terms of online public services (e-Government), according to the European Commission’s 9th e-Government Benchmark Report.
Examining the online availability of a set of 20 basic public services, such as, for example, vehicle registration, tax returns or registration of new companies, the EC reports an implementation rate of 82 percent in 2010, a substantial improvement over the 69 percent of e-Government service available in 2009. In Portugal's case, the Commission's report highlights the Citizen's Card, the Empresa Online (Online Companies) service, and the electronic declarations at the Ministry of Finance and Social Security online.
In terms of electronic public procurement, the results show weak implementation of this practice (best estimates indicate 5 percent of all public procurement), even while 70 percent of public authorities work with this scheme.
It is noted that, in the framework of the digital Agenda for Europe, the EU's established goal is for one in every two citizens and four in every five companies to be using e-Government services by 2015.
Further information:
- Digitizing Public Services in Europe: Putting ambition into action - 9th Benchmark Measurement http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=747
- Digital Agenda: more EU citizens benefitting from online public services http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/206&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
