03/06/2008

Electronic web services will be available in June for the citizens of 469 Greek municipalities, each with a population of under 20,000. 28 of these are in the prefecture of Attiki, 136 in Madeconia-Thrace, 66 in the Aegean region, 101 in Western and Southern Greece and 138 in Central Greece. The project ?Municipal Internet Portals?, with a total budget of 28.8 million EURO, is part of the Digital Strategy initiative and enables smaller municipalities to provide online digital services to citizens.

According to the Minister for Internal Affairs, Mr. Prokopis Pavlopoulos? statement at the conference organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Information Society SA, which focused on the presentation of the project, ?in this way, the small and medium-sized municipalities of Greece have the opportunity to modernize the services they provide to their citizens, to become more extrovert and effective, utilizing a user-friendly channel for communicating with citizens and local enterprises. Furthermore, the ?Municipal Internet Portals? project reinforces decentralization and upgrades the quality of services provided to citizens who are in turn familiarized with electronic services and electronic transactions that make their daily lives easier. Furthermore, while safeguarding local democracy and the transparency of public affairs.?

The Special Secretary for Digital Planning, Prof. Vasilis Asimakopoulos, pointed out that ?the country?s regions and municipalities can acquire new development opportunities if they take advantage of the potential of the Digital Strategy. We will intensify our efforts in this direction by developing the ?Digital Convergence? Programme. We will also make use of the principle of excellence in order to reward and reinforce those municipalities that set an example.?

The services to be provided through each Municipal Internet Portal will follow the European model recommended for the specialisation of e-government services and will be developed at the following levels:

- Information Services
- Interactive Services (such as requests and citizens? complaints, e-applications for the issue of public documents and certificates, information for beneficiaries and payment deeds, information services for the public regarding local job vacancies in the public and private sector and submission of the relevant applications, and official population registers).
- Electronic Transactions (payment of municipal taxes, traffic fines).

It is worth noting that there is an interest in expanding the project to other areas in the country, as another 100 municipalities with a population of less than 20 000 have expressed an interest in this endeavour. L

Source: ?Digital Government? Project