Malta-Estonia-Luxembourg. For the third consecutive year, Luxembourg has maintained its third place (which it shares with Iceland) in the eGovernment Benchmark, . Whether in terms of “user centricity” (97%), “transparency” (90%) or “cross-border services” (92%), the grand duchy ranks very well--well above the average--in line with its ambitions to be among Europe’s technological leaders. When it comes to the “key enablers” section, Luxembourg’s score (80%) is just above the European average. It should be better next year since the “once only” principle--which promises administrative simplification--is an ambition that will become a reality, .
The results are based on visits to almost 11,000 websites in Europe, using 14 indicators and 48 questions.
Another questionnaire sets out the country’s ambitions: the , a sort of annual barometer of the progress of digitalisation between now and 2030, to which stakeholders in the ecosystem are invited to respond online. So far, only nine people have completed the survey (which is open until 23 July).
What are the ambitions?
A1. That four out of five people aged between 16 and 74 have at least basic digital skills: today, this is the case for 60% of residents in Luxembourg, slightly better than the European average. There are still 20 percentage points to be gained by 2030.
A2. That at least 10% of all people employed in Luxembourg have specialist ICT skills, while respecting the balance between men and women: This is a bit more complicated. With almost twice as many experts as in Europe (8%), Luxembourg should be able to achieve this level. However, only 22.5% of them are women.
B1. 100% of households to be covered by a gigabit network by 2030: on the face of it, with 78.9% fibre coverage, Luxembourg is well placed. But the last few percentages are the hardest to achieve, either because of building work or because of connection problems. The creation of GIE MyConnectivity in 2021 aims to accelerate digitalisation progress.
B2 to B4. The other three infrastructure criteria are of little interest, since the ambitions are not quantified. It is worth noting that the prime minister, (CSV), touched on the last one, announcing during his first that he wanted to acquire a quantum computer. This would go alongside the Meluxina HPC, wite the difference being computing capacity.
C. That 75% of businesses use cloud services, artificial intelligence and megadata by 2030 and that 90% of its SMEs achieve at least a basic level of digital intensity by 2030. This is where the country will have the biggest difficulties, for very different reasons: after the various crises and if interest rates continue to ease, it will be necessary to find the budget and skills to accelerate digitalisation. The government has already announced specific aid. Economy minister (DP), for instance, on 4 July announced the and the addition, in October, of a programme linked to artificial intelligence.
With 32.6% adoption of the cloud and 32.4% of megadata, the country is below the European average and a long way from the 75% mark. With 14.40% adoption of AI, it is much better than the EU, but a long way from its ambitions. And on digital intensity (the use of digital tools and solutions to interact with customers, partners or suppliers; the collection and use of data to make decisions; and the digitisation and integration of business processes), the score of 57.80% looks pretty high compared with an ambition of 90%, but it will be complicated without both a specific and collective effort.
D. On the digitalisation of public services, the wording of the ambitions should be reviewed, as the ambitions do not correspond to the indicators selected. Luxembourg wants “100% of citizens and businesses to have access to the main public services online by 2030, including shared healthcare records for citizens and the electronic identity card for citizens.” The figures for access to public services have almost already been achieved, but only three out of four citizens (76.1%) have access to their medical records online.