Functional, Accessible, User-Centric Electronic Services and Systems Are the Objective of All Our Efforts

Sofia hosts the international semantic interoperability conference SEMIC 2018

“Without ensuring the compatibility of our base public registers, it would be very hard to apply the basic principles of e-governance and the ambitious European digital programme. Interconnected public registers are a core component of e-governance, and in order to achieve digital transformation on a European level, we have to strive towards digital interconnection between public administrations in Europe”, announced deputy chairperson of the State e-Government Agency (SEGA) Alexander Yolovski who launched the international semantic interoperability conference SEMIC 2018 in Sofia.

Bulgaria hosted the eighth edition of the conference, attended by over 250 experts from 38 countries and organised by the European Commission and the State e-Government Agency as part of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU. The theme of this year’s edition of the conference was “Linked Digital Public Administrations”.

“Semantic interoperability is a core element of the efforts to reduce the administrative burden on citizens and businesses, including application of the Once-Only principle of data collection, and relieving citizens and organisations from having to flit between various institutions”, Yolovski said in his address to the conference participants. This issue has been a central priority of the State e-Government Agency’s work since its establishment 18 months ago.

“Live”, functional, accessible electronic services and systems that meet users’ demands is the objective of all these efforts. “It requires semantic interoperability on all levels – on a semantic, legal, technological, and organisational level”, Alexander Yolovski emphasised.

The SEGA deputy chairperson further reminded attendees that in the Tallinn Declaration on e-Governance (October 2017), EU member states undertook to ensure that EU citizens and businesses may interact digitally with institutions within 4 years. “There is a vision for establishing the Digital Single Market, there are national legislations that are aligned with EU law. It is time now that we also ensured interoperability on all levels, knowing as we all do that it is a long and difficult process that requires our best efforts”, Alexander Yolovski explained.

ENABLING THE END-TO-END PRINCIPLE OF E-GOVERNMENT - Presentation by Bulgarian CIO Alexander Yolovski at SEMIC2018 conference