Pan-European eGovernment services and networks: interoperable delivery, programme IDABC 2005-2009, follow-up IDA II

The common position follows the general lines and objectives of the Commission's amended proposal and reinforces the focus on pan-European eGovernment services. The Common Position has been accepted in Council by unanimity. The common position shares the overall objective of the Commission's proposal and in general terms, the proposed means of attaining that objective. However, the text of the proposal has been reworded in the course of discussion within the Council. Moreover, some articles were restructured to enhance clarity and strengthen the focus. The main points of the common position differing from the Commission proposal are the following: - the common position restructured the original Article 1 into two articles, the first indicating the scope of the Decision and the second stating the objective. Moreover, in Article 2 of the Common position, the Council amended the objectives in order to focus more on the pan-European eGovernement services and the needs of the businesses and citizens, all the while recognising the role of the underlying networks and infrastructure services. - the Article 3 of the Commission's proposal has been deleted. The Council considers that the prioritisation can be done on the basis of Article 2 (Objective) and the two Annexes. - as far as the implementation principles are concerned, the Council increased the amount of definition in point 7 in view of avoiding duplication and speeding up development of eGovernment services. - the Council amended the Article on the implementation procedure and the Article on budgetary provisions in order to ensure a rolling work programme with adequate flexibility when modifications are needed during the duration of the programme all the while taking into account the budget breakdown per project of common interest or horizontal measure. - the name of the management committee has been changed to the Pan-European eGovernment Services Committee (PEGSCO) to better correspond to the new focus of the programme. A new Article was formed from the last paragraph of this article for sake of clarity. - the Council has amended the Article evaluation to take into account the fact that the IDABC programme extends beyond the current financial perspective and to enable full benefits to be drawn from the envisaged evaluations of the programme. - Article on the financial framework has been amended to better correspond to the text of the Interinstitutional Agreement on budgetary discipline and improvement of budgetary procedure and to take into account the fact that the IDABC programme extends beyond the current financial perspective. - Annex II (horizontal measures) has been amended to single out those activities that go beyond the provision of technology and software solutions. The amended Annex and the associated amendments to the remaining text aim to ensure that the provision of cross-sectoral pan-European eGovernment services are initiated, enabled and managed by the Commission.�