The European eGovernment Awards is a European Commission initiative organised every two years. The aim is to encourage good practices and innovative solutions in central government authorities to increase access to public services for businesses and individuals. Five winners have been selected among the 52 finalists in a ceremony in Maslö (Sweden)

The prestigious European eGovernment Awards aims at promoting best practices and the most innovative electronic solutions that public authorities in Europe have developed to facilitate citizens' and business' access to public services, reduce the administrative burden and increase public administrations' efficiency. 52 finalists projects were selected in August, and all of them make a significant contribution to increasing the efficiency of public services in Europe through the use of digital technologies. All finalists competing for the Awards used state-of-the-art applications such as innovative websites and portals, SMS-based services, web 2.0 as well as other ICT-based solutions.

There are five categories in the awards; eGovernment supporting the EU’s single market, eGovernment empowering citizens, eGovernment empowering businesses, eGovernment enabling administrative efficiency and effectiveness and the public’s prize awarded by the public through on-line voting. In total, there were 259 submissions from 31 countries.

The five winning projects are:

Category: eGovernment supporting the single market

• Winner: European Order for Payment Application, EU-OPA, Austria-Germany

Category: eGovernment empowering Citizens

• Winner: Genvej, Denmark

Category: eGovernment empowering businesses

• Winner: The Italian Public Administration eMarketplace MEPA, Italy
  

Category: eGovernment enabling administrative efficiency and effectiveness

• Winner: Licensing of Hunters via the “Multibanco” ATM Network AFN/MB, Portugal

Category: Public Prize – Online voting

• Winner: SMS Information System SMS INFO, Turkey

The awards have been given in a ceremony in the framework of fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference, that has taken place in Maslö (Sweden) on 19 and 20 November. In this meeting, EU ministers have reached an agreement on the key targets that Europe must achieve concerning to eGovernment by 2015.