Once a year, Kresimir Alic walks to one of 50 stationery stores in Zagreb where Croatians can buy the forms needed to file their income-tax returns.
Two years ago, the Croatian Finance Ministry updated its Web site to let citizens download spreadsheets to calculate their taxes. But taxpayers like Alic, a 31-year-old research analyst, still cannot download all the necessary forms or file a return online.
“We could really use an online filing system,” said Alic, who works for International Data Corp., a research company.
“EGoverment options have improved over the last two years, but as is the case in most Eastern European countries, there is still a long way to go.”
A decade after some of the first government Web sites went live, the quality of eGovernment in Europe varies greatly, experts say, with some countries, like Sweden and Denmark, already providing many services to citizens and businesses online, while others, especially in southeastern Europe, are still creating Internet portals.
But regardless of the level of national wealth or political commitment, one problem still affects nearly every European eGovernment initiative, experts say: The sites built by the governments tend to use different technical and organizational standards and usually cannot communicate with each other.
Part of the problem is the patchwork of software standards, a result of competition between proprietary software makers like Microsoft and makers of open-source software, which some EU governments are beginning to use to avoid reliance on a single supplier.
Software vendors spend considerable time and money courting government clients. Microsoft, for example, is holding a two-day seminar for European government executives in Berlin, beginning Tuesday. The keynote speeches Wednesday will be delivered by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
But often, the obstacles to seamless eGovernment, experts say, are not with software but are more basic. For example, governments…