Ukraine has been given the green light to connect to the OOTS test environment

Digital European integration is one of the key directions on Ukraine’s path towards membership in the European Union. It involves the gradual implementation of European digital standards, regulations and infrastructure necessary for Ukraine’s integration into the EU’s single digital space. The e-Governanace Academy has been helping Ukraine to pursue this objective for many years. One of the outcomes of this work is getting the access to the Once-Only Technical System (OOTS) test environment.

This very thing was tin the spotlight of the 60th meeting of the Single Digital Gateway Coordination Group, in which representatives from the e-Governance Academy, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, and the State Enterprise Diia participated.

One of the key highlights of the meeting was the European Commission’s official announcement of the launch of the OOTS test environment and decision to grant the access to Ukraine upon completion of specific organisational and technical steps.

OOTS is a European infrastructure that enables the secure cross-border exchange of data between public authorities. It allows citizens and businesses to avoid resubmitting information already held in the public registers of another EU country.

For Ukraine, access to the OOTS test environment is an important step towards integration into the European Union’s single digital space. This will help speed up preparations for cross-border data exchange and provide a practical understanding of the technical principles underlying OOTS and the mechanisms for cooperation between countries.

With the support of eGA experts within DT4UA project, a prototype of the national OOTS infrastructure has already been developed. The next stage will be to connect it to the European Commission’s test environment and begin testing cross-border data exchange with EU countries.

During the meeting, representatives of the European Commission presented the technical and organisational aspects of the OOTS test environment and discussed approaches to its use by candidate countries.

The participants paid particular attention to the opportunities for cross-border cooperation within the OOTS framework. The Ukrainian delegation discussed further cooperation with representatives from Finland, Austria, Cyprus and Malta.

The meeting also discussed integrating OOTS with the European Digital Identity Wallet. Participants concluded that OOTS could serve as the infrastructure for the secure provision of attributes to digital wallets, thereby enhancing the capabilities of future cross-border digital services.