The European Union is advancing on digitalizing its public services, as evidenced in the eGovernment Benchmark 2025 report published just now. For more than a decade, this benchmark has provided a systematic appraisal of the delivery of essential public services, with the 2025 edition delivering a “holistic” evaluation of about 100 services within nine key life events of citizens, including moving house, beginning a business, and obtaining medical treatment.
One significant development of this year’s benchmark is that life events are being measured on an annual basis for all nine, allowing more accurate as well as less time lagged data to measure progress under the Digital Decade targets. The report, authored by Capgemini, in collaboration with Sogeti, IDC and Politecnico di Milano, highlights a positive acceleration in digitalization, including that more than four-in-five administrative processes are now online.
Mobile responsive interfaces are now almost standard, 96.1 % of eGovernment services in the EU are available for smartphones and tablets. Moreover, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming more into the spotlight with 43% of national portals offering an automated live support, typically by means of chatbots and 60% with a presence of a live support.
While such progress is certainly laudable, the eGovernment Benchmark 2025 report also highlights remaining areas more desperately in need of attention. Cybersecurity remains a high priority, as fewer than 1 percent of government websites currently satisfy all basic cybersecurity requirements.
Security testing has advanced, but with the continued growth of digital public services, there is a need to make more significant efforts to protect personal data of citizens and the overall government brand.
Cross-border interoperability is another area where significant progress needs to be made. 92% of services for domestic users are “fully available online“, but this figure plummets to 58% among cross-border users. This discrepancy shows the importance of interoperable data sharing and identification systems between Member States.
The so-called “Once-Only-Technical-System” (OOTS), allowing obligatory mechanisms like the automatic exchange of documents from other member states has still not been fully rolled out, thus preventing a fully alienation free cross-border experience.
It also highlights an overall slow uptake by companies of fundamental technologies such as AI which is hampered by a continued shortage of ICT professionals and digital skills among the wider population. Online accessibility in the health sector, in particular, still lags behind other sectors.
The 2025 eGovernment Benchmark is a key compass, which steers the EU’s Member States in the direction of their very ambitious digital 2030 targets. Sustained investment, strategically implemented policy, and joint effort in meeting these remaining challenges will be the key to a genuinely inclusive, efficient, secure digital public sector.
