Malta’s public service has been certified first in Europe in terms of eGovernment services, for the second year running. 

Malta obtained first place with an average score of 96% - the same score it obtained last year - followed by Estonia (90%) and Luxembourg (87%).

This could be seen in the "eGovernment Benchmark Reports 2022" released by the European Commission, which assessed the online government services of 35 European countries. 

Malta's public service ranked first in all the criteria of the exercise and obtained a score 28% higher than the average.

Assessors looked at four dimensions of e-government services to assess each country: the user centricity of such services, including whether services are accessible through mobile devices; transparency of e-government services; key enablers of such services; and the extent to which e-government services are open to users from other European countries. 

Malta is above European average in the digitalisation of businesses and their exploitation of online sales channels, assessors concluded, though the country still ranks lowly on 'openness' - an indicator that considers the extent to which countries have an Open Data policy in place and the extent to which citizens are able to select their government.

Public service head Tony Sultana said the result certifies the high level of public services in Malta.

Such a result, he said, would not have been possible without the dedication of the public officers, and the investments being undertaken for the service to remain at the forefront, with the best digital tools and talent at hand.

The European Union undertakes the benchmark annually to determine how effectively the public administrations offer their services using modern digital tools and channels.

The exercise evaluates the provision and delivery of eGovernment services in 35 countries across Europe - the 27 EU states and Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey.