Italy lags behind in EU over digital bureaucracy says study

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 13 - Italy lags behind many European Union countries in the digitalization of relations between public administrations, citizens and businesses, according to a report on Italian bureaucracy drafted by artisans association Confartigianato, based on Eurostat and Eurobarometer data, published on Tuesday.
    "Only 41.3% of Italians interact with public institutions through the internet, compared to a European Union average of 54.3%", the report said.
    Italy also "ranks in 23rd place in the EU for the digital public services offered to businesses", the study noted, stressing that "we are still far from European innovation standards"..
    The report highlighted that "53% of local institutions - regions and autonomous provinces, provinces, metropolitan cities, municipalities, local health agencies ASL and hospitals - have a website that is exclusively informative and not enabled to interact with users and just 30% enable online payments on their websites.
    "This last percentage sinks to 13% in the South", Confartigianato said. On average, "only 23% of citizens interact with public administrations by sending compiled documents and this places us in the last positions of the ranking of 195 European regions" with the most efficient territory, the autonomous province of Bolzano, ranking in 131th place and the least efficient, Calabria, in 184th place, the study noted. (ANSA).