Ensure the long-term sustainability of cross-border digital services infrastructure

Potential of action

Electronic service delivery across borders in domains as diverse as health, justice and social security makes life easier for citizens, businesses and public administrations while bringing Europe closer together in ever more tightly knit Digital Single Market. The re-use of open services and technical building blocks (such as eID, eSignature, eDelivery and eInvoice) when providing such services is critical for ensuring smooth interactions across borders and sectors. The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is the key EU instrument until 2020 to facilitate such cross-border interaction between public administrations, businesses and citizens, by deploying digital service infrastructures (DSIs) such as eHealth, eJustice and Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI) build upon the reusable building blocks. If no long term sustainable governance, operational and financial structure is put in place, there is a risk that service delivery will be reduced to a minimum, that reuse gains will be lost increasing costs and time to market and hampering smooth interactions across borders. Synergies will be lost and others not achieved. Therefore, the Commission will present a way forward for their sustainability beyond 2020.

Description of action

Following the conclusion of a study aiming at providing a substantive analysis and assessment of a range of different sustainability options, the Commission will elaborate measures to take with a view to ensuring the long-term sustainability of Digital Service Infrastructures. The study will deliver its results in January 2017.

Main responsible at the European Commission: DG CONNECT

Target date: 2018

Status: Completed

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