SEMIC2018 took place on 14th June 2018 in Sofia as one of the official events of the Bulgarian Presidency of the European Union. The conference focused on semantic interoperability, but the phrase Once-Only Principle (OOP) was mentioned by almost every speaker from the very beginning of the conference. In her keynote speech, Mariya Gabriel (EU Commissioner for Digital Government and Society) underlined, that the OOP is a foundation of the one-click administration in the EU. It contributes greatly and helps to build the cross-border interoperability between European countries. At the same time, Principle reduces the administrative burdens and cuts the red tape, which prevents citizens and businesses from travelling with a piece of paper from one administration to another. That was said by Alexander Yolowski (State e-Government Agency), who stated, that the Once-Only is included in the Bulgarian e-Government Act.
During the Session I entitled “Base Registries”, Jack Verhoosel, semantics expert and member of the TOOP architecture team, explained the details of the TOOP semantic model and data components. He also invited participants for the forthcoming Once-Only For Europe Conference, that will take place between 24th and 25th September in Vienna (AT).
Fleur Breullin from the European Commission (DG GROW) presenting the Single Digital Gateway Regulation indicated that by, the Once-Only Principle is one of the prerequisites for the efficient data exchange, meeting the requirements of the regulation.
The booths of TOOP and SCOOP4C projects welcomed numerous visitors in their project corners, explaining the OOP and its impact for the European Public Administrations.
