attractive feature of interoperability of business processes (IBP) is the fact that one business process can begin and end at any place in the world regardless of the type of machine or program equipment which is sued for its automation. More important goals of IBP are: • Allowing systems and products to operate with other systems or products without additional efforts by the user • To increase the productiveness by automation of human labour • To eliminate the unnecessary business processes and multiplication of data • To minimize the faults from manual processing • To encourage the development of innovative internet-based business processes • To improve the privacy by giving to the users complete control over their data, etc. One of the biggest challenges (and a barrier at the same time) of widely spread of information and communications technologies are the different organisational forms of national, regional and local levels. Interoperability of information societies requires that all these organisation forms be able to exchange information and have access to each other and to services and contents placed on various administrative layers. Also the need to interoperability on three different levels has been noted: • Interoperability of administrative processes (organisational interoperability) for: o important events for citizens – birth, marriage, insurance, (health, pension…) o business events – incorporation of a company, tax payment, announcing tenders… • Mutual understanding of information (semantic interoperability): Systems should be able to mutually understand their languages. For example: a birth certificate is quite a standardised document, but it looks different in different countries • Technical Interoperability: computers should be able to “talk” with each other. This level of interoperability is most often achieved by standardization. If interoperability is ensured, many administrative barriers will be removed and the free movement of businesses and citizens will be facilitated, not only on a national, but also on an international level. II.12.2. Current Status and Measures Currently, the Strategy for the development of Information Society has been adopted in the Republic of Macedonia and several projects have been implemented related to eGovernment. There is a need for continuation of the e-Government projects according to European standards, with a special emphasis on interoperability of systems. Public authorities can accelerate the development of information society as legislators, regulators, promoters and public procurement agencies. They must ensure that legislative and regulatory conditions create business enabling environment which attracts investors, they must assist in innovation and economic development and take care of the interests of Page 35 of 40