eEurope action evaluation

The eEurope 2002 initiative was started and the Action Plan endorsed at the Feira European Council in June 2000 as part of the decade-long Lisbon strategy of economic, social and environmental renewal. The Action Plan set out 11 actions areas in which there were a total of 64 targets to be achieved by the end of 2002. These targets have been monitored regularly through the benchmarking exercise, and the results achieved have been presented in the eEurope 2002 Final Report.

This initiative was followed by the eEurope+ initiative covering the candidate countries which the SIBIS project also covered.

In April 2002, a new plan, the eEurope 2005 Action Plan, was launched by the European Commission. The goals set by eEurope 2005 represent a shift from a quantitative set of goals to a more qualitative one, with the aim to stimulate secure services, applications, and content based on a widely available broadband infrastructure. Emphasis within eEurope 2005 is about putting users at its centre, enabling improved enterprise productivity and growth and bringing with it employment and social cohesion through conveying to all citizens the benefits of the Information Society. To achieve these targets, the Action plan comprises four separate but interlinked tools: policy measures, the exchange of good practices, the benchmarking of the progress made and an overall co-ordination of existing policies.
In November 2002, the European Commission published a proposed set of benchmarking indicators for the eEurope 2005 Action Plan, which were endorsed at the meeting of the Telecommunications Council on 5 December 2002.

SIBIS has carried out an evaluation and benchmarking of the eEurope 2005 actions for the EU15 countries and Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia using SIBIS indicators which come closest to those developed by the eEurope initiative.