“Internet activity has been very high over these past few days, both in blogs and on Facebook”, said a pleased Mats Odell on Friday, as he participated in the concluding plenary session at the eGovernment conference in Malmö. “We’ve had over a thousand tweets from the conference and most of them have been very positive.”

The conference opened on Wednesday with a ministerial meeting resulting in the adoption of a ministerial declaration on how future eGovernment in Europe is to be designed, with common goals up to 2015. The ministerial declaration contains a shared vision and shared priorities for how the 34 countries behind the declaration intend to use eGovernment to strengthen citizens and companies.

Expert group and action plan expected

In concrete terms, the declaration means that a special expert group will be established and an action plan will be drawn up for how the work on eGovernment should proceed.

During the subsequent conference, politicians and representatives from businesses and organisations have had the opportunity to meet to discuss eGovernment over two days.
“Bridges are now being built from both ends”, stated Mats Odell, Sweden's minister for financial markets and local government.

Innovative solutions rewarded on Thursday evening

On Thursday, the evening concluded with an award ceremony; the European eGovernment Awards. The objective of the award is to encourage good practice and innovative solutions among central government authorities to increase access to public services for businesses and private individuals.

At the concluding plenary session, the baton was passed to Witold Drożdż from the Polish Ministry of the Interior and Administration. Poland is hosting the next eGovernment meeting which will be held in autumn 2011.
“We promise to do everything we can to make our conference as good as the conference here in Malmö, but it is a great challenge and we must show great ambition”, said Mr Drożdż.

Mechthild Rohen is head of the ICT for Government and Public Services Unit at the European Commission, which is responsible for the organisation of the eGovernment conference. She too is pleased with the eGovernment conference in Malmö and believes that the development of the Social Web will continue.
“Last time we organised this conference, the Social Web was seen as something exotic, but now there is a good understanding of its importance.”