The European Commission plans to launch the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), a programme that jointly addresses the transport, energy and digital infrastructure, to ensure social and economic cohesion. CEF is part of the Commission's proposals for the new Multi-Annual Financial Framework running from 2014-2020.

Part of CEF relates to what is called the Digital Service Infrastructures (DSI) which enable electronic trans-European interoperable services of common interest to citizens, businesses and governments. Improving the DSI in particular will pave the way for the deployment of interoperable, digital public services across Europe. In this context, the European Commission has launched a study to assess the readiness of Member States for a common pan-European network infrastructure for public services (SMART2012/0048) which started in January 2013. This study aims at supporting the Commission in elaborating the appropriate policy to coordinate, stimulate and support the deployment of a trans-European backbone and associated services. The study is entrusted to the Consortium consisting of Capgemini, Deloitte and Tech4i2.

The Consortium investigates national and regional public communication infrastructures in Member States, whether these infrastructures are in existence or in a planning or deployment phase. The analysis elaborates network infrastructures, national reference architectures and interoperability. Electronic information exchange between public administrations (PAs) is the main point of interest in this study. Information exchange between public administrations, citizens and businesses is out of scope, but will be taken into account if it concerns the access of citizens and companies to public information. The focus of this analysis is on Closed User Group networks (CUGs). A CUG network is a network that facilitates the exchange of electronic data between more than two organisations having access to that CUG. The clients and users of these CUGs are in this case public administrations at a national, regional and local level. This includes both ministries and municipalities and the layers in-between. The emphasis is on (the developments around) connecting local, regional and national CUGs so as to be able to scale these up to a European level. These interconnected networks are referred to as closed interconnected networks.

Furthermore, the focus in the study is on:

• All Member States;
• The demand for electronic information exchange between public administrations and requirements at a national and cross-border level by means of closed interconnected networks;
• The supply of connectivity for public administrations by CUGs and closed interconnection networks;
• The willingness and ability of Member States to close the gap between demand and supply.   

Based on information collected, the study team will assess Member States’ readiness for a pan-European network infrastructure for public services, will build scenarios for implementation and will make recommendations to the Commission. The preliminary results and recommendations will be presented to stakeholders at the study Conference on the 13th of November 2013 in Brussels.