On 11 May 2004 the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) adopted the new wording of a draft law amending several legislative acts concerning the protection of state secrets. This draft law was initially approved in July 2003, but was subsequently vetoed by the President due to several technical inaccuracies (incorrect numeration of articles, repeating several similar provisions, etc.).

The right of printed media journalists to freely receive, use, disseminate and store information will be limited to information which has 'open access mode' (amendments to Article 2(1) and Article 26(2) of the Law 'On Printed Mass Media'). This 'mode' is not defined in any law. This seems to be a violation of Article 34 of the Ukrainian Constitution, that does not limit freedom of information to any kinds or modes of information.

The proposed e-voting system in Ireland is under scrutiny due to concerns about fraud. An independent committee of 5 experts is commissioned to look into the alleged flaws of the system. The report is due out on 1 May.

The Irish government plans to introduce electronic voting machines from the Dutch company Nedap for the next European and regional elections in June. The system contains software by the Dutch firm Groenendaal and voting hardware made by Nedap. The same system has been used in the Netherlands for many years.

Civil liberty groups and the Labour Party have severely criticised the lack of an audit trail for the voter. After voting, the voter can not check if his or her vote is recorded correctly. The system does not provide a paper trail for possible recounts.

The debate about e-voting in Ireland gained intensity in March 2003, when a negative security assessment was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The assessment was carried out by the security company Zerflow at the request of the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The Irish government tried to keep the report secret, with adverse effects.

If you send an e-mail to a Member of the Romanian Parliament (MP), you have less than 10 percent chance to get a reply. That is, if the MP you are trying to reach has a public e-mail address to start with. Only a quarter of the representatives offers an electronic contact address. The conclusion from an e-mail response study by the e-democracy forum gives government a transparency-rating of only 0.29 (on a scale from 0 to 5).

The results are based on an complex analysis performed over the Internet, between 1 October and 30 November 2003. Two rounds of e-mails were sent to MP's to analyse their responsiveness. The e-mails contained questions about hot topics of the moment: the referendum for the New Constitution and the conclusions of the European Commission Country Report for Romania.

The Belgian government has announced plans to give every inhabitant of Belgium a free e-mail address. That is, every Belgian can ask for a free e-mail alias that can only be used to communicate with the different governmental authorities. This address will be included in the national population database, alongside with everybodies street address, city and date of birth.

The deputy-minister for 'Government computerisation', Mr Vanvelthoven, wishes to promote government communications with this plan, while at the same time cutting costs and saving the environment.

"We will take care of course that all e-mail addresses will be protected 100 percent", VanVelthoven said. "The protection of privacy is most important. Citizens that wish to be contacted by government, have to communicate an existing e-mail address. We will attach an encrypted alias

On the first of July, the Polish Access to Public Data Bill (2001) came into force. The bill obliges up to 10 thousands of public sector institutions (including local government, political parties, public schools, etc...) to put public information (such as information about property, structure, authorities, procedures, etc...) on special web sites. Each institution is obliged to create a separate website for this purpose, separated from their home page (if they have such). The root of all web sites is The Public Data Bulletin (a collection of hyperlinks).

The new legislation creates a lot of problems for most officials. The responsible people often don't know how to create a website and if they do, regulations seem very heavy.