Watch the full session: [LINK]
Leading voices from Europe’s GovTech ecosystem—including public sector innovators, startups, digital teams from all around Europe, researchers, and policymakers— gathered in Bilbao on June 18, for a high-impact policy session jointly organised by the GovTech4All and INVEST projects. Held during the GovTech4All European Consortium Summit 2025, the event focused on how digital innovation and interoperability can accelerate the transformation of public services across Europe.
Bridging Policy and Innovation
The policy session aimed to bridge the gap between technological innovation and European policy efforts, particularly the Interoperable Europe Act (IEA) and the INVEST project. The IEA is a landmark legislative initiative that lays the groundwork for seamless, cross-border digital public services. The INVEST project builds on this foundation, offering a clear roadmap to align technologies, policies, and communities across Member States.
In his opening remarks, EC Programme Officer Stefanos Kotoglou emphasized the importance of collaboration, co-creation and interoperability:
“The core of the work that we do is to co-create and innovate together, and develop practical tools, technologies that unlock interoperability as it is one of the core elements that we are aiming at, and support modern-citizen centric digital public services. European collaboration enables shared learning and helps Member States scale innovation in public services together.”
Key Takeaways
The session featured expert inputs, practical examples, and interactive discussions.
Ángel Luis Martín Bautista, Deputy Director for Planning and Governance of Digital Administration at Spain’s Ministry for Digital Transformation, shared insights from Spain’s two-decade journey towards interoperability. He emphasized the importance of addressing semantic, legal, organizational, and technical dimensions to reduce administrative burden and boost public sector performance.
Despina Mitropoulou, from GRNET- the INVEST project coordinator, highlighted the importance of the IEA “The Act is more than a regulation—it’s a game-changer for digital governance. We now have a legal framework that mandates sharing and reuse. Interoperability isn’t a constraint; it’s an opportunity to collaborate, innovate, and build on shared knowledge.”
She explained how INVEST supports IEA implementation by:
- Mapping & aligning interoperability solutions
- Supporting uptake of IEA by Member States
- Connecting tech, policy, and community
- Providing a Strategic Roadmap
- Analysing the impact of existing GovTech solutions
Three short pitches from across Europe showcased govtech solutions and revealed key challenges in achieving interoperability:
- Tomasz Rychter, co-founder of Digitality, presented Poland’s flagship GovTech mObywatel app that brings together multiple public services into one unified citizen-friendly interface and shows what is possible when interoperability is built from the start.
- Ana Herrera and Cristina Fábrega from Las Rozas Innova presented a project co-created with an entrepreneur from their innovation HUB – an example of how local governments and startups can collaborate to build practical interoperable solutions with real world impact.
- Dani Marco, Generalitat de Catalunya, shared how they are using artificial intelligence to transform interoperability into operational reality, addressing some of the most pressing data interoperability challenges.
Practical Input and Insights
Participants engaged in an interactive exercise, highlighting the need for legal and regulatory harmonization to scale GovTech solutions across the EU. Additionally, engaging users from step one, and building alliances in local ecosystems to gain support early, emerged as a lesson learned from implementing/using a GovTech solution that other public administrations should know about.
Attendees shared GovTech solutions with high replication potential and ranked Stakeholder engagement as the most important success factor for scaling innovation across administrations. Top priorities included:
1. Legal/regulatory alignment
2. Technical interoperability standards
3. Data governance framerork
4. Financial sustainability model
When asked to summarize the main barrier to interoperability in one word, responses focused on “regulations,” “governance,” and “communication.”
Finally, when identifying sectors with the most promising interoperable GovTech solutions, citizen services and engagement emerged as the leading area of opportunity.
Building together digital public services of the future
The session highlighted a clear message: building together future-ready, user-centric digital public services requires open collaboration, mutual learning, and cross-border alignment.
As Alex Borg, GovTech4All project coordinator noted, “This session is not only a space for reflection, but also for alignment as we look ahead to the broader policy landscape that will shape the next phase of this journey.”