International Recognition of Denmark’s Work on Digital-Ready Legislation

Several European countries and international institutions are increasingly looking to follow in the footsteps of Denmark when it comes to ensuring that legislation is digital-ready. There has been significant growth in the interest from abroad in learning more about the Danish experience in this area. This week, the Danish example is being highlighted at a European conference in Lübeck.

From 1 July 2018, ministries that draft legislation have worked systematically to consider digital impacts and potentials in new legislative proposals. This means, among other things, that it should be described in the legislative proposals what the expected impact will be on citizens from new digital requirements, what the requirements will be regarding the safeguarding of data, and whether the legislation necessitates development of existing or new digital solutions.

Since 2018, more than 270 legislative proposals have been submitted for review at the team for digital-ready legislation at the Agency for Digitisation before being presented before Parliament.

Following in Denmark’s Digital Footsteps

The Danish experience has resonated abroad, resulting in a high level of interest from a number of countries and international organisations.

Director General of the Agency for Digitisation Rikke Hougaard Zeberg has been invited by the German Presidency of the Council of the EU to present the Danish experiences with digital-ready legislation for the other Member States at a high-level conference in Lübeck on 10-11 November 2020.

I see this as genuine recognition of the work that we have carried out in Denmark in the last three years that more and more countries and international organisations follow in our footsteps. We are off to a good start in Denmark, but we realise that we must also learn more. A professional dialogue on these issues with other countries is sure to benefit us all because, in the end, we face many of the same challenges.

The OECD as well as the European Commission have recently enquired about the Danish experiences, while Norway recently opened a national resource centre, which resembles the team for digital-ready legislation established in the Agency for Digitisation.

Read more about the DigiLabs20 conference

Read more about the international interest for cooperation on making legislation digital-ready below.

New National Regulatory Oversight Body

The Agency for Digitisation has just been registered with the OECD as a new national regulatory oversight body. This means that the Danish experience in ensuring that legislation is digital-ready can potentially be a foundation for learning and knowledge sharing in the international comparisons conducted by the OECD.

Furthermore, the agency’s work to make legislation digital-ready is featured as a case-study in an inspiration paper, which was published in October.

Read the OECD publication “Cracking the Code: Rulemaking for humans and machines”

Joint Webinar with the European Commission

The European Commission has also shown interest in the Danish experience with digital-ready legislation, and on 21 October 2020, the Agency for Digitisation participated as a speaker at a joint webinar with the European Commission (DG DIGIT).

At the webinar, the agency shared the motivation behind the ambition of requiring legislation to be digital-ready as well as some of the experiences gained so far. The Commission presented their upcoming tool for digital-ready policymaking, which is inspired by the Danish work. The tool will offer the opportunity of a ‘digital check’ of policy proposals from the European Commission under the updated better regulation toolbox.

Read the description of the European Commission’s upcoming tool for “Digital-ready policymaking”

Launch of Norwegian Centre Inspired by Denmark

Denmark’s immediate neighbouring countries have also expressed an interest in the Danish experiences. The Agency for Digitisation was invited to speak at the opening of the Norwegian National Resource Centre for Data Sharing, which will work in the field between law, technology, business, and administration.

Read about Norway’s National Resource Centre for Data Sharing