E-Democracy in E-Austria

Christian Rupp has been appointed Federal Executive Secretary of EGovernment in May of 2003. At that point of time a new E-Government Platform was introduced. He reports on the current developments of E-Democracy in Austria. A new-networked economy and a knowledge-based information society have emerged in our midst. The way people live, learn, work and relate to each other is being unalterably changed. The digital revolution is leading to the development of entirely new forms of social and economic interaction and new communities in a borderless cyberspace. Free flow of information and ideas has sparked an explosive growth of knowledge and its myriad new applications. As a result, economic and social structures and relations are being transformed. In the private sector, citizens have become used to using the Internet for business transactions they expect the same level of service from their government agencies. Hence, e-government has become one of the main concerns in the administration. With the decision of the Council of Ministers of the Austrian Federal Government in May 2003 an E-Government Platform at political level has been set up in June 2003 which is chaired by the Chancellor in order to demonstrate the high priority of the implementation of E-Government. The platform is composed by the Vice-Chancellor, the Federal Minister of Finance, the Federal Minister of the Interior, the Federal Minister of Justice, the State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery, governors of the federal provinces , the president of the association of Austrian cities and towns, the president of the Austrian association of municipalities, the business sector (Presidents of the Federal Chamber of Commerce, of the Austrian Social Security Institutions and of the National Conference on Liberal Professions), the Federal Chief Information Officer, several external experts and the Federal Executive Secretary for E-Government. This platform has to agree on an Austrian E-Government Roadmap (nearly 100 projects until 2005) and to ensure the overall coordination of its implementation.