At the last week's official conference in Sweden IT ministers from all European Union member states signed a declaration aimed to push e-government initiatives and lower digital barriers between countries in Europe.

The initiative will enable more efficient e-government services and simple automated transactions at both national and international level. "The introduction of such e-government structure should make it easier for European citizens and businesses to move across borders", said Swedish minister Mats Odell.

The ministers hope to build a "high-tech" bridge between EU countries by removing red-tape and replacing it with simple automated online transactions between the state, business and citizens. The states will conduct series of studies to identify and evaluate main legal, organizational and other obstacles that currently preventing from the development of cross-border e-government structure.

According to UK minister for e-government and IT Angela Smith the goal is to use technology to make public services smarter, cheaper and greener, which allow citizens and businesses to easily interact with government. "The focus is to build services around citizen, not the government", she said.

UK is leading the way in the development of services with more than 75 percent of British driving license applications made online, while £140bn of benefits payments are delivered electronically each year.

This initiative, however will not be start from scratch as efforts to develop joint e-government structure are already under way. The €164m program was launched by European Commission last year to improve electronic communication between European countries. It ensures that e-government initiatives undertaken by member states use common frameworks.