General alignment to the Digital Gateway.

Dr. Sch-W – 06/2018

On 15 June, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament agreed on a compromise in a dossier, which will also call significantly on the services of Germany’s social security system. The European single digital gateway shares certain similarities with Germany’s central Portal Network, which is being established as part of Germany’s Online Access Act. The single digital gateway will use the existing Your Europe portal to provide citizens with digital access to as many public services as possible, including access across borders. To achieve this, public administrative procedures that are available in analogue format must also be offered fully digitally in the future. Additionally, these online procedures also need to be offered in a second language that is understood by the largest possible number of users across borders. This is likely to be English, despite Brexit.  

It is worth noting that there have been certain changes to the list of procedures that must be fully digitally accessible. First is the applying and issuing of the European Health Insurance Card, which will be possible electronically in the future. It will also be possible to do tax returns digitally in the future; however, this does not apply to tax assessments 

 

This is also true for claiming a pension – this may be done electronically in the future. However, only receipt of the claim must be confirmed electronically; the assessment can be delivered by other means. This requirement is limited to compulsory pension schemes, which excludes a large proportion of occupational pensions and private pensions. It is also interesting to see that requesting information about pensions and claims is also included on the list. It not only has to be possible to request this information online, it must also be possible to receive statements digitally.