Article by the Minister of State and Digital Governance, Mr. Kyriakos Pierrakakis
When the first wave of the pandemic broke out, a legitimate concern was what would happen to people’s dealings with the state. It is true that, if we exclude the submission of declarations to the tax offices, which for years has been carried out electronically via Taxisnet, the main services of the state were not digitised until then. How many and which services were provided electronically, as well as how, were also largely unknown.
In the Ministry of Digital Governance, we had already identified the problem from our initial announcements, we had defined the solution and we had started planning it.
Our aim is to move into the digital age without leaving anyone behind.
As a result of this strategy, gov.gr was launched on 21 March, a few days after the start of the restrictive measures. Its original version included the 501 services that until then were provided by the State through the websites of each institution plus the attestation of the authenticity of signature for authorizations and affidavits.
In this way, gov.gr has achieved two things from its first day of operation: firstly, to make it easier for citizens to avoid the most common reason for visiting a KEP or a Police Station; and secondly, to bring together already existing electronic services which many times the people concerned were unaware that they already existed, resulting in them unnecessarily resorting to the counters.
…citizens were ready for the digital age and what they were waiting for were the right government policies and initiatives.
Eight months later, the 501 services have far exceeded 700. The issue is not so much quantitative as qualitative: the new services cover an important part of basic citizen-state transactions. Such services include paperless prescriptions and paperless referrals, demographic certificates and birth certificates, temporary driving licences, nursery school registrations, and video appointments at KEPs and tax offices.
The response from citizens has exceeded our expectations, as it took us just over six months to break the barrier of two million documents issued electronically by the new services alone. At the same time, the steady upward trend in the use of e-services shows us that citizens were ready for the digital age and what they were waiting for was the right government policies and initiatives.
And while e-services may be a necessary step in the transition to the digital age, they are not enough in themselves. They need two more competent co
cases: digital skills and digital infrastructure.
When it comes to digital skills, we are moving in two directions: on the one hand, we provide detailed instructions for most gov.gr services; and on the other hand, we enable citizens to enhance their digital skills through the digital citizens’ academy, which provides free courses for all levels of digital skills.
Regarding infrastructure, firstly, well before the pandemic outbreak in September 2019, we modernised the legislative framework for mobile antennas, a necessary step for the transition to the 5G era. The transition, the stages of which we planned in detail from our first day at the Ministry of Digital Governance, with the aim of not wasting time.
Indeed, the original 5G timetable did not lose ground, as was the case in most countries, resulting in a complex and demanding tender being completed this year and Greece entering the era of fifth generation networks in the first months of 2021.
By the end of the year and implementing the Prime Minister’s announcement, gov.gr will have reached a thousand services.
The digital response to the first wave of the pandemic also included the international recognition of a Greek idea. 13033 (which unfortunately had to come back into our lives a few weeks ago) was identified as best practice by the OECD and the relevant EU Commissioner, Mrs. Vestager.
Currently facing the second wave of the pandemic, we intend to follow the same philosophy to turn the challenges of COVID 19 into an accelerator of digital transformation.
By the end of the year and implementing the Prime Minister’s announcement, gov.gr will have reached a thousand services. Some of them, such as the Non
Citizen Communication Troika and “Know Your Customer” will come to solve multi-level problems of citizen relations with both the public and private sectors. In addition, through the gov.gr mobile application, we will be able to carry a “digital briefcase” with all the documents we have issued electronically.
At the same time, with the completion of the spectrum auction for 5G, the operation of the Phaistos Fund will start, which will be financed with 25% of the state’s revenues from the tender. This fund will be used to seek ideas that will develop into new applications around fifth generation networks. This will have a multiplier effect on businesses across the entire production spectrum. Through this process a new innovation ecosystem will be born.
As we have mentioned many times, in the field of digital transformation, Greece has had many loose ends from the past – and still has many more. The coronavirus simply turned the pending issue into a necessity, adding to the urgency of their resolution. And that’s what we do, while keeping up with new developments.
Our aim is to move into the digital age without leaving anyone behind. We want Greece not just to be the next good example of overcoming rigidities and bureaucracy, but to become a factor of innovation and leadership. We have the plan, the capabilities and the manpower. And working together with citizens and businesses, together we will make it happen.
