'We are very interested in issues about e-governance,' Malcom Harbour, leading a nine-member delegation of European Parliament on a visit to India on a fact-finding mission,
Europe is keen to learn e-governance success models in India to replicate some of them back home between its Parliament based in Brussels and 27-member countries, a key official said today.
"We are very interested in issues about e-governance," Malcom Harbour, leading a nine-member delegation of European Parliament on a visit to India on a fact-finding mission, said as he saw lots of possibilities for collaboration in sharing ideas and concepts.
Like India, investment into e-governance growth in Europe was growing, added Harbour, chairman of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Market, European Parliament.
Europe is keen to know how e-governance works between the Federal (Union) and provincial (state) governments in India, as it makes one such case between Brussels-based European Parliament and its 27-member EU states, Harbour said.
"I think e-governance is potentially an exciting area," he said, adding, there ought to be more initiatives between Europe and India. Europe wants to learn on matters such as inter-operability and exchange of data vis-a-vis e-governance and public sector units in Europe need to develop solutions.
Asked about the extent of outcry in Europe against outsourcing to India now, Harbour said: "...my sense is that the whole process (now) is matured".
He noted that companies such as Airbus and EADS were leveraging Indian skills in the product engineering and design domain since "that's a very scarce resource" (in Europe).
Barbara Weiler, an European Parliament member from Germany, said companies such as German firm Volkswagen are creating jobs in India to sell products in this market as well as neighbouring regions. This is seen as a big opportunity for Volkswagen back home in Germany.
"Critics (of outsouring to India) are less (now)", she said but added "not every site (in Europe) can accept (outsourcing to India)".
Harbour said Europe and India can take up joint innovation programme, particularly in the areas of green transport and energy solutions.
The delegation on a two-day visit to Bangalore is slated to interact with executives of IT companies and officials of the State IT department.
A NASSCOM official made a presentation on Indian IT sector to the delegation, which earlier this week visited Mumbai and Pune. The delegation comprised nine European Parliament members from different countries and groupings, including from the UK, Germany, Cyprus, Latvia, Portugal, Poland and Romania.
Their visit is an endeavour to better understand how India deals with some important regulatory issues, such as services, standardisation, customs and consumer protection, which are crucial elements of a fully operational single market, whether in Europe or India.
In the European Union, the European Parliament plays a vital role as co-legislator alongside the 27 Member States.
This Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection is in charge of coordination at European level of national legislation in the sphere of the internal market and for the customs union, measures aiming at the identification and removal of potential obstacles to the functioning of the internal market, among others.
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