Cross border co-operation and interoperability

During the last thirty years, almost since the inception of interoperability as a capacity of information systems, research and practice has shown that enhancing interoperability among organizations, systems or software applications is a multi-disciplinary issue, touching upon processes, data and technical standardization. In the current context of European Union, more stress is being put on an interoperable, connected but also distributed, eGovernment infrastructure able to provide citizens with pan-European services. In order to achieve uniformity in service provision and the needed cross-country collaboration, new standards and guidelines evolve and are being propagated, on top of new technology offerings, such as cloud infrastructures and future internet assemblies. This paper goes beyond the current status, presenting new sources of solutions for governments: European and national interoperability frameworks, service registries, commonly shared codelists and XML codifications, next generation multi-channel personalized service models, eID infrastructures, citizen participation models and administration transformation methods are some of the pillars for achieving next-generation quality in service provision, at pan-European level, through the effective collaboration of governmental agencies.