News       

PLUG PULLED ON EUROPEAN DATABASE.

The European Commission has pulled the plug on a project to create a ast pan-European information exchange for local and regional overnment, after it failed to produce a working prototype within an cceptable period of time.

The 'EUSlanD' initiative (European system for local authorities' etworking domain - http://www.eusland.org) was initiated in January 000 by a consortium of public and private bodies from Belgium, enmark, France, Italy and Poland (see E-Government Bulletin, issue 02, August 2001).

The three million euro programme was to be a multilingual index to nformation sources and case studies, to help local authorities benefit rom the experience of others across Europe. There were five main hemes including the innovative use of information and ommunications technology by local and regional governments; and an nbuilt thesaurus system, 'Eurovoc', to set out standard vocabulary for ublic sector activity to allow for automatic translation into all uropean languages.

However, the project was hampered by a series of delays, and failed to roduce a working prototype acceptable to the commission despite xtensions to its original deadlines. Following a final investigation the ommission finally pulled the plug last month.
Part of the problem seems to be an overly-ambitious scope planned for he prototype version, combined with a lack of urgency from some onsortium members.

taken from E-Government Bulletin, issue 128

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