Community programme represent integrated number of activities adopted by the European Community of Union to promote cooperation among Member States in different areas connected by EC common policies. Community programme are, on the basis of special item in EU General Budget, actually intended for EU Member States. However, some of them are open to countries in the EU pre-accession process. As such, they are considered as one of most important instruments of pre-accession strategy, i.e. introduction of the state candidate for EU membership with EU working methods, and their integration into the Union sector policies while awaiting accession. Countries which are not EU members, and as such do not contribute to the Union's common budget, are obliged to pay membership fee for participation into the Community programme, whose amount differs for each single programme. The quality of submitted projects affects the results of invested funds and whether these will be less, equal to or higher than the paid membership fee.
Pursuant to the Conclusion (Class: 910-04/00-03/06; File No.: 5030106-07-12) as of 28 February 2007, the Croatian Government entrusted the Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia to initiate the procedure, during 2007 and 2008, for accessing two Community programmes and by implementing them to secure financial and human resources conditions:
- Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens – IDABC, and
- Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme: The Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme - CIP ICT PSP.
Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens – IDABC - Community's Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens uses the possibility of modern information and communication technologies in order to facilitate and encourage cross-border cooperation and provision of cross-border public sector services to citizens, companies and authorities of other EU states and in order to make Europe even more attractive place for living, work and investments.
- The main goals of the programme are:
- simplify and facilitate movement of EU citizens and business across borders;
- enable free movement of goods, capital, and persons,
- enable free settlement of citizens of one EU Member State on the territory of another.
- By participating in IDABC programme, the Republic of Croatia was given the opportunity to participate in sTESTA project (secure Trans European Services for Telematics between Administrations) and to use CIRCA tools (Communication and Information Resource Centre for Administrations).
1. sTESTA represents a private network of the European Community encompassing all EU Member and candidate states. The network is completely separated from the Internet and in that manner provides safe and fast communication among officials in different countries on Trans-European level. It arose from the need for safe information exchange among European public governments with the aim to provide telecommunication services for information exchange required for the implementation of the European policy. Almost all EU institution, agencies and Member States are connected to this network which represents IDABC infrastructure fro providing Trans-European services among public governments. sTESTA technological platform serves for the set-up of over 40 different services for data exchange among countries. We point out the following:
- AFIS – anti-fraud information system is a group of applications supporting data exchange against fraud among OLAF (Europe Anti-Fraud Office) and competent authorities in EU states and wider;
- EUPHIN – European Union Public Health Information Network facilitates telematic support to information system and system on knowledge of public health issues. The main goal of EUPHIN is to provide support in collection and sharing of objective, reliable, compatible and comparable information on public health on EU level;
- EURODAC – is the European fingerprint database designed exclusively for asylum seekers identification. This automated system is the first of its kind in EU and has been applied since 15 January 2003;
- SafeSeaNet (SSN) – is Pan-European information system for electronic reporting in maritime transport. SSN represents one-stop-shop solution for information exchange, and its main goal is to improve safety and efficiency of maritime transport;
- TACHONET – telematics network for the exchange of information concerning the issuing of tachograph cards is common network used across EU. It represents the central place for information exchange among national directorates responsible for issuing "smart" cards for digital tachographs. CIRCA enables safe and fast service for distribution of resources and documents based on an open programme code (Open Source Software).
2. CIRCA has been implemented into hrvatska.hr domain and for the purpose of testing its functionalities, it is used for operation of the Central public government portal and for the needs of the. CIRCA system has been implemented into APIS IT and can be used by all Croatian state government bodies. Currently, data on the following projects/programmes are exchanged within CIRCA:
- Public government central portal coordination
- eAccount project
- Project management
- Council of the Public government central portal
- Common cadastre and land registry information system
Community programme contact person:
Ivana Andrijašević, MSc, deputy State Secretary
Phone: + 385 1 6303 355
Implementation level contact person:
Marina Škrinjar Vidović, Head of Department
Phone: + 385 1 6303 926
E-mail:
marina.skrinjarvidovic@e-hrvatska.hr
The Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme - CIP ICT PSP
- The Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme represents one of the programme initiated by the European Commission within the framework of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).
- The goal of this Programme is to overcome obstacles in the development of the information society, stimulating innovations and competitiveness in development of ICT and best use of ICT by citizens, entrepreneurs and public government.
- The Programme is intended for the development of innovative ICT solutions markets that are of public interest.
- Foreseen duration of the Programme is from 2007 to 2013 with the total budget amounting to 730 million EUR.
- Croatia participates as an observer in the work of the Board for ICT-PSP programme, European Commission’s expert authority.
- In order to fully participate in the Programme, Croatia, as non-EU member has concluded the Memorandum on understanding with the European Commission determining principles, deadlines and conditions for participation of the Republic of Croatia in ICT PSP programme for granting EC financial and other aid.
The Memorandum on understanding was signed by Croatia on 25 October 2007 in Zagreb, and by the European Commission on 17 October 2007 in Bruxelles.
Community programme contact person:
Ivana Andrijašević, MSc, deputy State secretary