In December 2015, European Commission's Directorate-General Communications Networks, Content and Technology launched an implementation and evaluation assessment of the European eGovernment Action Plan 2011 – 2015 ("EU eGovernment Action Plan 2011 – 2015"), adopted on 15th December 2010. The purpose of this evaluation is to describe the progress of implementation of individual actions of the Action Plan and assess its functioning. In the broadest sense, this evaluation exercise will provide answers to how well the European public administrations have progressed towards meeting the Malmö vision (November 2009 Malmö Ministerial declaration), which is included in this eGovernment Action Plan:

"by 2015 European public administrations will be recognised for being open, flexible and collaborative in their relations with citizens and businesses. They use eGovernment to increase their efficiency and effectiveness and to constantly improve public services in a way that caters for user's different needs and maximises public value, thus supporting the transition of Europe to a leading knowledge-based economy."

The EU eGovernment Action plan 2011-2015 did not indicate the need to carry out a final evaluation as such. According to the eGovernment Action Plan, the overall progress would be measured annually, using an appropriate mix of instruments and methods. However, according to the Commission's Better Regulation guidelines, retrospective performance evaluations support policy preparation3. "Evaluations gather evidence to assess how well a specific intervention has performed (or is working) - -. An evaluation also draws conclusions on whether the EU intervention continues to be justified or should be modified to improve its effectiveness, relevance and coherence or to eliminate excessive burdens or inconsistencies or simply be repealed." This evaluation is carried out in so far as possible in this context, in order to provide a set of lessons learnt to guide the work of the new eGovernment Action Plan 2016 – 2020 announced in the Digital Single Market Strategy