Page - 51 - in Austrian Law Journal, Volume 1/2019

ALJ 2019 Digital Single Market – towards Smart Regulations 51 Another sector which can positively contribute to the development of the Single Digital Market is the public administration itself. If national and local administrative processes become more and quicker accessible for EU citizens, this will certainly benefit the “new economy”. The latest European legislative measure to achieve this aim is the Single Digital Gateway102 which will be discussed in the following section. V. The Single Digital Gateway As the digitisation of society progresses, the public administration is expected to take advantage of the new technology and make its benefits available to citizens. The EU has recently started to focus on the digitisation of administration to consumer (A2C) contacts as consumers in particular benefit from low-threshold access to online public services.103 In the Commission's view, recent technological developments in information and communication technologies - in particular in cross-border contacts - offers potential for growth.104 Most recently, the EU Parliament and Council have taken a (potential) landmark step towards digitisation in user-oriented administration. On 11 December 2018, the Regulation for a Single Digital Gateway (SDG) came into force after extensive negotiations.105 As one of the strategies of the “Compliance Package”,106 the SDG Regulation provides for the establishment of an online portal, which shall enable EU citizens to exercise their Single Market rights comprehensively and efficiently in conjunction with cross-border administrative procedures. The intention behind the new Regulation is, of course, not entirely novel in EU law: The concept of the SDG is somewhat advancing the instrument of Points of Single Contact (PSC)107 which has already been implemented by the Services Directive108. Besides the PSC, there have been other sectorial one-stop shops in EU legislation.109 However, as Recital 11 of the SDG Regulation frankly admits, the sectorial nature of these acts has resulted in a fragmentation of the digital A2C 102 Cf. European Parliament, Single digital gateway: a time saver for citizens and companies, Jul. 12, 2018, available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20180711IPR07739/single-digital-gateway-a-time-saver- for-citizens-and-companies. 103 E.g. COM (2015) 192 final; Commission, Upgrading the Single Market: more opportunities for people and business (Communication), COM (2015) 550 final. 104 See COM (2015) 192 final 16 seq. 105 Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2 October 2018 establishing a single digital gateway to provide access to information, to procedures and to assistance and problem-solving services and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 [2018] OJ L295/1 (SDG Regulation). 106 An overview of the contents of the Compliance Package, including a proposal on the Internal Market Information Tool and measures to improve the free online Single Market Problem Solving Network, is given by Wurster and Stöbner de Mora, Binnenmarkt: Kommissionsvorschläge zum Compliance-Package, 28 EUROPÄISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR WIRTSCHAFTSRECHT 444 (2017). 107 PSCs are e-government portals that allow service providers to access information and complete (certain) administrative procedures online. For detailed information, in particular on the implementation in Austria, cf. Stöger, Der einheitliche Ansprechpartner im Bundesstaat – Ein Blick über die Grenzen, in VOM PRAKTISCHEN WERT DER METHODE: FESTSCHRIFT HEINZ MAYER ZUM 65. GEBURTSTAG 755 (Jabloner, Kucsko-Stadlmayer, Muzak, Perthold-Stoitzner and Stöger ed., 2011); Stolzlechner, Einheitlicher Ansprechpartner und die Vollziehung des gewerblichen Berufsrechts, in GEDENKSCHRIFT ROBERT WALTER 801 (Jabloner, Kolonovits, Kucsko-Stadlmayer, Laurer, Mayer and Thienel ed. 2013). 108 Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market [2006] OJ L376/36. 109 An overview is given in Recital 10 of the SDG Regulation.