Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Launch of European digital single market strategy

БНР Новини
Photo: library

The European Commission will soon launch a new digital strategy, Andrus Ansip, the European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market said at a round table on the subject. Europeans are clear as to the broad range and competitive prices which the Internet – the world’s biggest market – has to offer. But there are numerous barriers they have to overcome if they want to travel the old continent online. However, if a digital single market were to be put in place, an additional growth of EUR 250 billion can be generated over the next 4-5 years, comments Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev.

Estonian commissioner Andrus Ansip comments:



One example of such a breakdown in communication between individual administrations in this country is when the same information about companies’ finances is submitted to statistics, to the tax administration and to the business register. If the three were to be linked, the information could be submitted just once.

Minister of Transport and Information Technology Ivaylo Moskovski presented the main components of the e-government platform: connecting public registers, Internet identification, providing 29 regions of Bulgaria with high-speed Internet. The projects are going ahead as scheduled and there will be no delay. The Northwestern region of Bulgaria which is notoriously the most underdeveloped region within the EU has been included in a joint project, implemented on EU funding, together with Romania and Serbia. Minister Moskovski said he was pleased with state-business cooperation in the sphere of information technologies.

That it is the e-government and not highways or retrofitting that is the government’s top priority was made clear by Tomislav Donchev, Deputy Prime Minister for EU Funds and Economic Policies in his report. E-government is relied upon to make the economy more competitive. Minister Donchev:

“The new public procurement act we are drafting which will be finalized by mid-2015 will provide the legal framework for the practice of e-procurement. With the help of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, we have already set up a public e-procurement department. We have ensured financing for the entire process under the Good Governance Operational Programme.”

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov on his part said he had got the idea to have traffic police patrols with cameras from Estonia. In his words, digitalizing traffic officers in Estonia had brought corruption down drastically. The Prime Minister also promised to provide Bulgarian customs officers with cameras.

English version: Milena Daynova




Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Bulgarian business is looking to hire 261,926 new workers and professionals

In the next 12 months, the Bulgarian business needs about 262,000 workers and specialists , according to a study by the Employment Agency. This is nearly 9.3% of the currently employed. Compared to the results in 2023, there is a..

published on 10/24/24 11:42 AM

Bulgaria will apply method used in France and Spain to combat hail

There will be pilot testing of ground-based silver iodide generators for hail protection in two zones where the use of rockets is not allowed, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ivan Kapitanov said.  At a meeting with Claude Berthet,..

published on 10/24/24 11:21 AM

Political instability is a major challenge for German investors in Bulgaria

The German economy has been shrinking and the government expects a decline of 0.2% of GDP. Some of the main reasons for this include unresolved structural problems related to lack of energy security, excessive bureaucracy and shortage..

published on 10/24/24 9:15 AM