Comparative Study on the Digitalization of Specific Public Services Grouped by Life Events: The Case of Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership Countries

Digital transformation of public administration remains high on the European Union (EU) agenda. The EU has adopted the Single Digital Gateway Regulation (SDGR) to establish a single gateway to provide citizens and businesses easy access to online services and information. The SDGR requirements can also be seen as a model for improving the online service ecosystem but also can be used to compare and benchmark many online services provided by the EU and non-EU Member States. This paper aims to reveal the level of digitalisation of public service delivery for the life events of 'Birth' and 'Starting, running and closing a business' in the Western Balkan (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia) and Eastern Partnership (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) countries and to assess how they are prepared to comply with the SDGR requirements. The study identifies many similarities and dependencies of digitalising public service delivery in all countries but also detects common challenges to implementing the SDGR requirements.