From E- to Open-Government in delivering European Union funds to beneficiaries: the case of Greece

The aim of the current research is to examine how and to what extent existing e-government services in planning, managing, and delivering EU funds in Greece, can evolve into new open-government models. It also aims to examine how to effectively engage citizens and potential beneficiaries to participate in processes, such as policymaking or projects’ and funds’ allocation within the framework of the Partnership Agreement 2014/2020. The study comprises of a combination of both secondary and primary data being selected from public bodies (managing authorities) and potential beneficiaries (public entities and citizens) searching their awareness, perceptions, concerns and attitudes on existing and possible future open government models. Findings show that respondents recognize the benefits of e-government services, yet they encounter difficulties using them, mostly due to the platforms’ technocratic language. They are uncertain however on the impact open data have had on the EU funds management and demonstrate reservations on trust and security issues, including interaction and integration of their proposals in policy- and decision-making processes. The study concludes with proposals on future academic research and policy applications in order to further advance the openness of governance in the EU funds. a the websites,

government, institutions, and academics alike, agree that open government is more than information on the internet and that the simple provision of data does not open up a government. Open government combines transparency and participation, it requires interaction and synergy between the administration and the citizens, it encourages citizens' engagement and inclusion in policy processes, it promotes dialogue and empowers citizens, it fosters transparency and accountability, limits corruption and eventually restores trust to governments (Chadwick and May 2003;Meijer, Curtin and Hillebrandt, 2012;OECD, 2016;Williamson and Eisen, 2016). In this study we endorse this approach that e-government is a first stage of providing online governmental and administrative information and services to citizens, businesses, and other government entities. Open government, however, transforms the user from "customer" to "collaborator" and combines e-services with interaction: users actively engage in transforming and co-producing policies and projects in a democratic environment.
The Open Government Partnership (OGP), established in 2011, aims "to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance". The 75 participating governments endorse a declaration to "pro-actively provide high-value information, including raw data, in a timely manner, in formats that the public can easily locate, understand and use, that facilitate re-use, to create and use channels for public feedback and deepen public participation in developing, monitoring and evaluating government activities, to support and develop the use of technological innovations by government employees and citizens alike". The members of the OGP submit a national Action Plan elaborated after public consultation and periodically report on its progress. Often there is a misconception of the terms "open government" referring to the policy and "open data" being the technology or simply a means of achieving transparent and accountable governance (Yu and Robinson, 2012;Millard, 2013). Open data as a tool can result in an open government and advance both transparency and knowledge or interaction with society, whereas the citizens become a part of and engage in the process, provide feedback, and hold the government accountable (Janssen, Charalabidis and Zuiderwijk, 2012;European Commission, 2015a). In this context, the UN define Open Government Data (OGD) as "government information proactively disclosed and made available online for everyone's access, re-use and redistribution without restriction" (United Nations, 2018). Actually, the concept of open government as the government's release of information to promote public accountability dates back to the 1950s in the US and the people's right to know recognized in the Freedom of Information Act in 1966 (Yu and Robinson, 2012). The authors support that the ambiguity arose when the US President used the term "open" to refer both to transparency and to technological innovation in his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government (Obama, 2009) followed by his Open Government Initiative.
Open data are expected to lead to new or better services, innovation, economic benefits from their re-use and sustainable development. Technically they should comply with principles defined in a 2007 workshop (opengovdata.org): complete, timely, machine processable and license-free, collected at the source, accessible to all and without discriminations. The whole concept of open government is based on the values of transparency, participation, and collaboration (Coglianese, 2009;Abu-Shanab, 2015). However, open data alone and technology do not necessarily open up a government or enhance public accountability if the data delivered is not meaningful or easily understandable by the users or if they do not possess the skills to benefit from them.

E-participation and e-democracy
Scholars and institutions introduced and distinguished from e-government the term of edemocracy, or e-participation and e-engagement, which refers to consultations with and engaging the citizens through ICT in the government's policymaking (Torres, Pina and Royo, 2005;Palvia and Sharma, 2007;Lee, Chang, and Berry, 2011;Freeman and Quirke, 2013;European Parliament, 2016). In democracy and open government transparency or "vision" refers to access to information on the decision-making processes, while participation or "voice" involves dialogue, consultations, and active involvement in the decision-making (Curtin and Mendes, 2011;Meijer, Curtin and Hillebrandt, 2012). Thus, e-democracy is not confined to consultation initiatives with official forums, questionnaires, or e-mails with limited response, but provides more active, transparent, and open processes to the citizens. It is an ongoing twoway dialogue, with both online and offline methods, it requires receptive governments responsive to change (Freeman and Quirke, 2013), user-friendly tools and respect for the actual priorities of the citizens and the diverse cultural, educational, or other skills of the target groups (Charalabidis and Loukis, 2011). According to a European-wide survey amongst practitioners, researchers described a model of 23 success factors for designing an e-participation initiative (Panopoulou, Tambouris and Tarabanis, 2014). Among the factors ensuring sustainability of the initiatives, they include security and privacy, technology advances, accessibility, and employee training. They also consider as a success factor "value for citizens", describing activities pertaining to the appeal, ease and clear understanding, combination of online and offline channels and feedback to the users.

E-government strategy and models in the EU and Greece
The European E-Government Action Plan 2016-2020 (European Commission, 2015a) sets three priorities: modernisation of public administrations, cross-border interoperability of the digital public services, digital interaction between administrations and citizens/businesses.
Following the E-Government Action Plan and the European Interoperability Framework, the EU and the EFTA countries in the Tallinn Declaration have committed to provide at all levels of public administration high quality, user-friendly, borderless, and interoperable digital public services to all citizens and businesses (European Union, 2017). Moreover, they will apply user-centricity principles (digital interaction, accessibility, protection of personal data and privacy, availability, usability, reduction of administrative burden, incentives for digital service use, complaint mechanisms). The revised PSI Directive 2003/98 on the economic aspects of re-using public sector's information Europe-wide, focuses on free flow of data, transparency, and fair competition. Currently, at the EU level there is a range of digital programmes to boost the Digital Single Market, such as the eIDAS Regulation 910/2014 "on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions" and the Interoperability Solutions for Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (ISA²) programme. Moreover, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme is funding Digital Service Infrastructures or "building blocks" that can be re-used in digital services across EU states and sectors (eDelivery, eInvoicing, eID, eSignature and eTranslation). The EU also supports ICT open government projects under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme.
In the field of the cohesion policy, the Structural Funds' Regulations 2007-2013 required that the MAs provide information about available investment opportunities and publish electronically a list with the programmes' beneficiaries, the title of co-financed projects and the amount of public funding allocated "with the aim of highlighting the role of the Community and ensuring that assistance from the Funds is transparent" (Article 69 of the Council Regulation 1083/2006, Article 7 of the Commission Regulation 1828/2006). In 2010 a web-based survey of all 436 OPs across Europe examined the availability and quality of these beneficiaries' lists (Reggi and Ricci, 2011). The researchers concluded that most of the programmes focused on the letter of the law and provided strictly the minimum information required in www.ijbed.org A Journal of the Centre for Business & Economic Research (CBER) 27 pdf format, even ignoring Directive 2003/98 on the re-use of Public Sector Information. Still, they identified a group of programmes which provided in a user-friendly way additional information, data visualisations, search options etc. and a third group providing actually useful information (year, region, projects description) in a machine-readable format, rendering the data re-usable.
In the current period, the EU set more explicit and strict requirements towards a more usercentered strategy, quality and openness of the data published. To ensure that the funds' management is open for public scrutiny, current rules (Common Provisions Regulation 1303/2013, Articles 115-117 and Annex XII and Implementing Regulation 821/2014, Annex II) stipulate that the MAs must publish and update every 6 months a list of operations with the name of the beneficiary, the name and summary of the operation funded, the postal code or other location indicator, the country, the implementation period (start date and expected or actual completion date), the total eligible expenditure allocated, the EU cofinancing rate and the category of the intervention. The list must be in a spreadsheet data format (i.e., csv or xml) and clearly indicate the applicable licensing rules so as to allow "data to be sorted, searched, extracted, compared and easily published on the internet".
Moreover, the MAs are responsible for providing information to potential beneficiaries regarding all funding opportunities, calls for proposals, eligibility of expenditures, procedures for evaluating funding applications, deadlines, selection criteria and the authority's contact details. It is important to add at this point that the "mid-term" revision of the EU Regulation introduces a new concept, that of "visibility" alongside information and communication. It also introduces new tasks and responsibilities for the MAs, namely, to increase their digital presence through social media ("communication adapted to technological innovation") and improve interaction with citizens (Annex II, Art.2.1). Moreover, the proposed rules for the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (European Commission, 2018b) move towards a simplified cohesion policy with shorter, fewer, simpler, and clearer rules harmonised through all EU funds and programmes. They introduce at EU level single branding, a single portal displaying all available funding opportunities across member states and a single project database with the co-financed operations Europe-wide. They also introduce a single national website providing access to information on all EU programmes and funds and a 5% financial correction to beneficiaries not complying with the rules.
In the meantime, the Commission has launched since 2015 the European Data Portal (www.europeandataportal.eu), a repository of open to re-use information from all public administrations across the EU. Amidst growing mistrust among European citizens, they also introduced the EU Open Data Portal (data.europa.eu) with open data published by the EU institutions free to use and re-use (tenders' datasets, research projects, Eurobarometer etc.). Actually, in September 2017 they launched an EU Datathon with data from the Open Data Portal to create new applications providing transparent and comprehensible information in a user-friendly format. To reinforce such efforts, the European Data Journalism Network (europeandatajournalism.eu) is developing a tool to help journalists harvest data from the European Data Portal.
The Commission also launched the ESIF Open Data Platform (cohesiondata.ec.europa.eu) with data on financing and implementing the cohesion policy and the co-funded programmes. The platform provides for over 530 programmes daily payments' updates, by theme, by country or by fund and datasets by member state (with metadata files) for both the current and the previous period. It is soon expected to publish complete showcase projects with text and video, possibly in an effort of applying storytelling on their real societal value as suggested by Fung and Weil (2010). In this framework of working to make the EU institutions more open and transparent and fostering civic engagement and participation in policymaking, the Commission launched an online consultation in 23 languages on EU funds in the area of cohesion (10/1-9/3/2018). They also launched a series of consultations on the entire www.ijbed.org A Journal of the Centre for Business & Economic Research (CBER) 28 spectrum of EU future funding. The consultation on EU funds was open to all citizens and beneficiaries of cohesion policy with the aim to assess the use of funds so far and to collect the views of all stakeholders on what challenges to address in the future. Sadly, the consultation received 4,395 replies, 45% of them from individuals (436 were from Italy) and 55% on a professional capacity. Greece as a member state adheres to the strategy, the rules, and regulations of the EU both on egovernment and on cohesion policy. The National Digital Strategy 2016-2021 (Ministry of Digital Policy, Telecommunications, and Information, 2016) specifies seven areas of intervention in the public sector, the economy and society, the priorities and the implementation measures and actions required for Greece's development in the digital single market. The strategy aims at developing a next generation access infrastructure, accelerating the economy's digitisation, stimulating the ICT industry to develop digital economy and employment, empowering people with digital skills, fundamentally reviewing the way digital public services are provided, removing digital exclusions, and strengthening security and trust. It includes priorities such as open government in order to facilitate citizens' access to and participation in governance processes, a single government web portal (gov.gr) with simplified content and e-services designed from the perspective of the citizens. On more technical priorities, it provides for sustainable public sector projects under an "Integrated Planning Process" with a "digital by default" design, applying the "Privacy by Design and by Default" principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), sharing and re-using interoperable solutions, through open standards, open APIs, and the development of public SDKs. The strategy correlates with the National and Regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3).
Τhe E-Government Strategy and the ensuing Action Plan 2014-2020 focus on ICT as a means to enhance the efficiency of the public sector and elaborate on how exactly to implement the National Digital Strategy and best deliver digital public services. Greece aims "to build a more efficient, transparent and accountable administration", facilitating participation and strengthening citizens' role (Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, 2014b). The principles are interoperability among government services and systems, compliance, integration, conservation, single-data entry, feasibility-sustainability of ICT services, transparency, accessibility for all, data security and users' privacy. Among the interventions included in the Action Plan (Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, 2014a) one can highlight digital literacy, single point of contact for users (ermis.gov.gr, www.eu-go.gr), digital signatures, open data by default, the common e-government interoperability framework (www.e-gif.gov.gr), linking of the state's core registries, an integrated human resources' management system (HRMS) and a centralised system of integrated financial management (ERP) in the public administration. Greece has also been actively involved since 2011 in the OGP and is currently implementing an ambitious 3 rd National Action Plan on Open Government 2016-2018 (Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, 2016) to promote transparency, citizens' participation and corruption fighting. Greece's commitments include among others a framework law on open and participative governance, e-goal setting tools for monitoring and evaluating the administration's and the government's work, improvement of the open deliberation process and a digital repository for public administration studies. They also include open data on culture, justice, marine, and public property, geospatial data, informative actions on open data for students and school of data for public servants, open-participatory budgets as well as local administrations' online consultation platforms and a "wikification" of the public services' procedures. The action plan also commits to Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the public and the EU-funded projects, providing geospatial mapping information on the implementation progress, benefits and impacts of the projects at central and local level and encouraging feedback from the citizens.
In conclusion, Greece has planned and introduced a series of important e-government initiatives and open government projects and legislation (e.g., Law 4305/2014 on open provision of public sector data) and undoubtedly prioritises the ICT use in the administration to foster openness, participation, and accountability. Nonetheless, we observe limited completion of various OGP commitments and planned actions and low rankings of Greece among other countries. According to Eurostat, in 2017 the Information Society Indicators were mediocre (European Commission, 2018a): 71% of households have a broadband connection (EU average 85%); 85% of enterprises have a fixed or mobile broadband connection (EU average 96%) ;47% of individuals use the internet for interaction with public authorities (EU average 49%); 45% of individuals use the internet for obtaining information from public authorities' websites (EU average 41%); 28% of individuals use the internet for downloading official forms (EU average 30%); 24% of individuals use the internet for submitting completed forms to public authorities (EU average 30%) ; 84% of enterprises use the internet for interaction with public authorities (2013) (EU average 88%). Regarding the degree of ICTs penetration, according to a composite set of dimensions established by the EU to measure performance in five major categories of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Greece ranks 27 th among the 28 EU member states with a score of 38.4 when the EU average is 54 (DESI, 2018c).
In the indicator of connectivity, it ranks the lowest with a transition to fast broadband connection slower than in the other EU states. In human capital (digital skills) it ranks 26th. In the use of internet services, Greece ranks 22 nd , mainly because banking and shopping online are far below the EU average. In the integration of digital technologies by businesses it ranks 24 th , mainly because of a low use of e-invoices and cloud services. However, Greece's performance in digital public services (e-government and e-health) also remains low. It ranks last scoring 39.2, with a 38% of e-government users (EU average 58%), however it is near the EU average in the provision of open data. Low ratings are also recorded in the Commission's E-government Benchmark Report (Tinholt et al., 2017), on penetration of online e-government services, digitisation of back-and front-office and citizens' digital skills. Greece however ranks 35th (from 43 rd in 2016) among 193 countries in the UN E-government Development Index (EGDI), a weighted average of online services' quality, telecommunication infrastructure and human capital. It has now joined the Very-High EGDI group and also ranks 34th th in the E-Participation Index, rising 31 positions since 2016 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2018).

E-government platforms for delivering EU funds to the Greek beneficiaries
The part serves as an inventory of e-government applications regarding cohesion policy in Greece the last two decades. We examine the evolution of data and services provided either conforming to the EU Regulations of the funding periods or as initiatives of the public administration. It concludes presenting examples of e-participation initiatives applied in the field of the EU funds' management.

Programming Period 2000-2006
At the end of the PP 1994-2000 the Ministry of Economy and Finance introduced the Integrated Monitoring Information System (MIS), a G2G service which became fully functional during 2000-2006. It has since served as the information and management system covering all stages of planning and implementing all the OPs and co-funded projects (applications, approvals, progress of works and funds' allocation, financing, timetables etc.). It publishes a variety of analysis and business intelligence reports for the MAs, the beneficiaries, and the public. Its use is nowadays mandated by EU Regulations on the exchange of data for the management of EU funds between member states and the European Commission and the Greek laws on the NSRF and the PA (3614/2007 and 4314/2014). To promote funding opportunities to potential beneficiaries and enhance transparency, in September 2003 the Ministry For Peer Review Only BAM2019 Conference commissioned MOU to design and manage a website aimed directly to the general public. The Citizens' Online Information System (www.info3kps.gr) as an "one-stop-shop" aggregated information for all CSF financial support schemes, employment, education, training and social support to individuals and businesses. A network of officers among the MAs collected and entered on a web-based database the calls for proposals (overview of terms and conditions, detailed documentation, and contact details for further consultation). The MOU edited the data to achieve a uniform presentation and a more understandable language, devoid of EU jargon or abbreviations. With 65 projects from all over the country, www.hellaskps.gr/bestpractices was included in a European study (Messina et al., 2008) and presented in the European Parliament. Other initiatives include the CSF's and OPs websites serving as simple information points on the CSF, its managing and implementation.

Programming Period 2007-2013
The MIS, SAMIS and the programmes' websites were further developed and upgraded, whereas info3kps and "best practices" were discontinued. Their features and network of administrators were incorporated in the new NSRF portal. The portal www.espa.gr was launched to serve as a single point of access to the OPs. The MOU developed on the same platform an intranet for the MAs. Under Law 3614/2007, the use of Diavlos (portal.espa.gr) became mandatory for the written consultations among the members of the Monitoring Committees. As a G2G service, the objective was to enhance collaboration and flow of information among the MAs. It included content management tools, e-libraries, contact information, workspaces, discussion groups (forum, chat services), users' sites (profile pages) and internal news. In 2011, the Ministry launched the website anaptyxi.gov.gr (http://2013.anaptyxi.gov.gr/) to disseminate information on the implementation progress of the NSRF and its projects.

Programming Period 2014-2020
The portal espa.gr was redesigned to become more modern. It is mobile responsive and has a higher conformance level of Double-A of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It publishes all the technical information related to the provisions and procedures of the OPs, and information on other EU funding instruments. Like its predecessor, espa.gr serves as a gateway to the OPs websites and provides searchable e-services: news, calls for tenders, e-library, funding opportunities from all the OPs for all categories of potential beneficiaries (1,189 calls for proposals on 5 th May 2018). By the end of 2017, according to statistics provided by the Ministry of Economy and Development, espa.gr reached 45,428 registered users and had almost 2 million visits in 2016 and 1,3 million in 2017. Moreover, the help desk resolved 2,580 citizens' and potential beneficiaries' requests in 2016 and 1,127 in 2017. Diavlos (diavlos.espa.gr) is upgraded and provides a wider range of specialised "workspaces" among officers (i.e., the information and communication network, the PA management and control system, the monitoring of projects supported by the MOU in the municipalities, etc.). Nevertheless, employees never fully tapped on its social media-like features and potential (users' profiles, chat, and forum). The website anaptyxi.gov.gr as a performance monitoring tool enhancing transparency and accountability is upgraded and provides multiple search options (project title, description, contractor, beneficiary, time period, geographical criteria, thematic objective, project category, OP, funds). It also provides graph data and open datasets (for projects, regions, OPs, funds, thematic objectives). Data is presented in the form of tables, charts, maps with general or detailed information on each project/sub-project. Nonetheless, the site has a low traffic flow (Table D.2), and it is estimated that most users are officers of the European Commission and the MAs. The State Aid Management Information System in the current period is by Law 4314/2014 compulsory for all EU-funded state aid schemes. SAMIS, a G2B and G2C service, has evolved into a dynamic development platform that supports the storage and processing of large volumes of data, www.ijbed.org A Journal of the Centre for Business & Economic Research (CBER) 31 complex workflows and business intelligence applications with an online user interface and advanced security layers.
3. Open data initiatives Diavgeia (diavgeia.gov.gr): The transparency program publishes online all public spending decisions since its launch in 2010; OpenGov.gr: Launched in 2010 to promote citizens' participation and collaboration in policy-making; Data.gov.gr: It was launched in 2013 to gather in one website and distribute government data in an open format so as to enhance transparency and accountability; Subsidystories.eu: At European level, the platform aiming to increase fiscal transparency of the EU funds; Your Data Stories: The project was co-financed under Horizon2020 and has developed an online tool through which governments share data; diadikasies.gr: The OGP commitments (Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, 2016), include the "wikification" of the public services' procedures.

E-participation initiatives (deliberations, polls) Entrepreneurial Discovery (EDP):
In the period 2013-2015 the General Secretariat for Research and Technology introduced the process of entrepreneurial discovery, a bottom-up participative process to identify potential new activities and new market opportunities in research and innovation in each Greek region. Entrepreneurs, academics, policy makers and citizens identified the priorities in a structured consultation through online Innovation Platforms in the eight respective priority areas of the National Strategy of Smart Specialisation (S3). EDP is a dynamic and evolving process to capitalise in strengths, a "self-discovery process" to interactively define priorities for public investment because the government does not have the ex-ante knowledge (Hausmann and Rodrik, 2003), ergo EDP is implemented throughout 2014-2020. In October 2017, the Special Managing, and Implementation Service in the areas of Research, Technological Development and Innovation conducted an online poll to measure the effectiveness of their EU-funded state aid project "Research-Innovate-Create" and the beneficiaries' satisfaction (Eyde-etak.gr, 2017).
Deliberation on Integrated Spatial Interventions in the area of the mythical river Acheron: the programme is expected to receive EU funding on a variety of projects for the sustainable development of five municipalities in the Epirus Region. During an open meeting in July 2017 the strategical plan was put under public debate among stakeholders and citizens involved. Moreover, the deliberation was published online for 2 months to collect comments, needs and proposals, however the public's response was limited to a couple of e-mails. Hence, the planning team visited stakeholders and with this face-to-face approach they effectively collected responses. In participatory or deliberation processes it is often advisable to combine online and offline methods and multiple channels (Åström and Grönlund, 2012). Gavdos: Processing a sustainable and endogenous development model for the island, the local authority and the MOU apply an open, participatory planning model through open-ended (bottom-up) governance, with experiential and participatory workshops, interviews or questionnaires and local dissemination events. The aim is to identify the strategy for local development, co-produce with the public's participation the action plan to be submitted for co-funding by the EU and to ensure civic engagement during its application. Currently, the support team has designed the necessary process steps. Relative platforms in EU countries

The example of Estonia
Estonia, "the most advanced digital society in the world" (Hammersley, 2018) with start-ups such as Skype and Transfer wise, is among the high performing EU countries ranking 9 th in the DESI index (it scores above the EU average a 59.7). In the Digital Public Services dimension of the index, Estonia lost its first position, however it still has the highest rate of e-government users and is among the top countries in Well-designed, user-friendly e-government services reach a wider audience and tap on the full potential of empowering citizens. UCD thus involves the end-users in the design process ranging from the development stage of the service or product (participatory design) to evaluating alternative prototypes (participatory prototyping) or testing the usability of the output (Abras, MaloneyKrichmar and Preece, 2004). Among key challenges in participatory design and prototyping is how to effectively inform and stimulate citizens to actively get involved in these events and how to sustain collaboration for future planning (van Waart, Mulder and de Bont, 2016).
GovJams are jam sessions involving public officials and individuals (designers, academics, citizens, entrepreneurs) to collaborate and materialise an idea into a concrete public service (Breno and Gama, 2018). Global GovJam (www.govjam.org) over a 48-hour period brings together teams across the world. Starting from an abstract shared theme and supported by facilitators, participants brainstorm, field research, design and co-create functioning prototypes of services. Breno and Gama (2018) explain that GovJams aim at knowledge sharing and exposing service design to governments. A significant effect of GovJams is that public servants are provided with new insights into how citizens perceive issues (van Waart, Mulder and de Bont, 2016). Co-designing user-centered services promotes inclusiveness, coresponsibility, increases ownership and trust among citizens (European Commission, 2015b).

Smart cities
The participatory approach is a core concept of smart cities. Technological developments and open data release have facilitated citizens' engagement and participation in policy and decision-making. Citizens can use web or mobile applications to report problems or deliberate on policies. They can participate in hackathons to exploit data or in living labs to prototype and test new projects (Gil-Castineira et al., 2014;Barker et al., 2016). This evolution shaped the concept of the smart governance as one of the current key trends. It largely refers to local governments applying ICTs to deliver to their citizens in a more efficient and effective way administrative and urban services ( (Washburn and Sindhu, 2010;Mellouli, Luna-Reyes and Zhang, 2014). Smart city (or intelligent city or digital city or knowledge-city) is an evolving complex concept and smart city initiatives involve factors such as management and policy technology, governance, organisation, context, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure and natural environment (Chourabi et al., 2012). Smart city solutions address common local issues with a "multi stakeholder partnership" and collaboration and include Smart Governance initiatives, such as open services platforms, single access points for government services or local integrated sustainability initiatives (European Parliament, 2014). Addressing the challenges of smart city policies, citizens often face barriers in using open data, projects adopted do not have a bottom-up perspective and are more the product of businesses' pressure than citizens' needs or even worse, their main purpose is not to improve services and urban life, but to promote the brand of the city (Gil-Castineira et al., 2014).

Social media
In the last decade, digital social networks, with their ease-to-use and mobile accessibility, have facilitated real-time communication, interactions, collaborations, delivery of governmental services (campaigns, debates) and even co-production of services. They enhance "collective action" and "collective intelligence" and shift the focus from the citizen customer to citizen-partner (Linders, 2012). Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube dominate the users' preferences. According to the Digital News Report of the Reuters, focusing on issues of trust in the era of fake news, Facebook remains a very popular platform in Greece. Among the sample population (2,014 users end of January/beginning of February 2018), 60% use it for news and 78% for all purposes. YouTube follows closely (36% use it for news and 79% for all purposes). Not surprisingly, the younger generation (18-24) uses mostly YouTube for any purpose (92%) and for news content (63%), Facebook (84% and 46%) and Instagram (68% and 21%). The report also records a rise in the use of messaging apps (Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp) for news (Nic et al., 2018). Notwithstanding, trust of Greeks in news in social media is very low (22%) and regardless of the medium only 26% trust the news content.
The Commission has placed a lot of emphasis on the use of social media -and even more so for the post-2020 period-for providing information and raising awareness among beneficiaries and the public regarding regional policy and the ESIF. In general, the trend in regional policy communication is less publications, more social media, storytelling, infographics, and audio-visual.
Greek national and regional MAs until now sparsely use social media, mainly as a billboard for announcing calls for proposals, news and events pertaining to their OPs. They have a limited number of followers and based on observation they have not raised participation and engagement among followers (Corchado et al., 2018). Examples of social media include G2G online platforms: Yammer, a social network inside organisations; the European Network for Rural Development (enrd.ec.europa.eu) connects stakeholders (National Rural Networks) and other. Practitioners and academics nevertheless dispute the effects of platforms like Facebook or Twitter which promote confirmation bias, amplify false ideas or trends, and encourage echo chambers, polarise the public or even spread fake news (Del Vicario et al., 2016). Concerns are raised on the accessibility and inclusion of minority groups or the disabled. Likewise, there are reservations on the public bodies' social media strategy and goals, the use of for-profit platforms to deliver governmental services, the lack of specialised staff in public entities to manage social media, analyse and process citizens' feedback and effectively respond or employ this feedback in decisionmaking (Charalabidis and Loukis, 2011;Magro, 2012). Besides committed and skilled personnel to manage the social media accounts, the administration should have clear principles and goals of the initiatives and distinct evaluation metrics (Lee and Kwak, 2012).

Research Methodology
The research problem consists of examining how and to what extent existing e-government services in planning, managing, and delivering EU funds in Greece can evolve and how into open-government models. The research targets both the public administration -either managing EU funds (MAs) or implementing public projects as beneficiaries (ministries, local administration etc.)-and citizens as (potential) beneficiaries. It focuses on the administration's attitudes and concerns on promoting open government models and on how to effectively engage (potential) beneficiaries to participate in processes, such as policymaking within the framework of the PA 2014-2020.

Methodology
To explore these aspects, during a four-month period, we used a combination of primary and secondary data collection and designed a quantitative research. Literature and documents/reports (OECD, UN, European Commission, Eurostat, OGP and Open Data Barometer; European policies, action plans and reports on EU funds' management and on open government) were reviewed. In the second phase of the study, primary data was collected from observing platforms on EU funds and through a quantitative research in the form of a survey addressing both the public sector and citizens. The aim was to measure specific traits (level of awareness, perceptions, expectations and needs) affecting the use of egovernment services and encouraging or hindering participation. Before distributing the questionnaire to respondents, we conducted a pilot testing with academics and practitioners in the field (MAs/MOU) in order to obtain feedback and finalise the questionnaire. Their responses were excluded from the final sample size. The third phase, included informal interviews with practitioners to acquire qualitative information, exploring trends by participating in Athens GovJam and synthesising the findings.

Research questions
The questionnaire, including demographics, consists of five sections and 22 questions in total. It has three multiple choice questions, one open question for possible additional comments by the respondents and thirteen Likert-scale questions to which the respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a given statement or evaluate certain options. The first section seeks to identify the respondents' attitude to e-government services provided by the Greek authorities in the framework of the PA. The second section explores the actual knowledge and experience of the participants, as well as their demand of e-services. Furthermore, the section tracks down the perceived quality of these websites with Likertscale questions based on the literature on quality management in electronic services. Researchers generally accept the multidimensional aspect of quality, nonetheless definitions for each dimension vary. In this case, the items which the respondents had to evaluate in terms of quality refer to the dimensions of information (clear, updated, personalised), technical efficiency (ease of use, design, accessibility), reliability of services (error-free and protection of personal data) and communication/support such as tutorials or helpdesk (Janita and Miranda, 2018). The third section of the questionnaire applies the index of the Open Data Barometer (The World Wide Web Foundation, 2017) in order to evaluate respondents' awareness and satisfaction on the use of open data. Two "to-what-extent-questions" include items measuring the availability and quality of open data in the field of the EU co-financed programmes (context and policy of open data). The fourth section with five Likert-scale questions explores the citizens' expectations of egovernment services and the motivation lying behind their e-participation (Torres, Pina and Royo, 2005) along with drivers such as pro-social behaviour and contribution to the community, enjoyment, reputation, learning, anticipation of benefits (Schmidthuber et al., 2017).

Sample -Research tools
The structured questionnaire addressed both citizens and employees in the MAs and the broader public sector. It was designed online and published in Greek in order to easily appeal to a larger sample of the target population. To reach the target groups, first we published the link to the questionnaire on social media (personal profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as groups of postgraduate students) and on the MBA forum of the Hellenic Open University. In addition, we used the official e-mailing list of approximately 1,600 employees of Special Services' managing and applying OPs, including a personal introductory note and a link to the online questionnaire.

Data Analysis
The part presents the results from the 400 questionnaires, their analysis per section and question and the key findings emerging.

Research findings and analysis
Regarding demographic characteristics: breaking down the respondents by gender, most of them (58.75%) are women. The majority (48.25%) belong in the age group 40-49, followed by those above 50 (25%). Only 4.25% are up to 29 years old (Figure 4.2). Among the respondents, 69% hold a master's level degree/PhD and an additional 28.5% a university degree. They have an extensive working experience of more than 20 years (42.25%) and 11-20 years (40.5%).

Section 1: Users' perception regarding the benefits of e-services.
A 66.25% of the respondents totally agree and another 26.8% agree "that online services in the framework of co-financed programmes are useful to beneficiaries and citizens in general". Subsequently, participants were asked to evaluate a series of e-government's benefits on one hand for the MAs/implementing bodies and on the other hand for the public (citizens /enterprises). Regarding www.ijbed.org A Journal of the Centre for Business & Economic Research (CBER) 36 benefits on public administration, the majority consider modernisation of the public administration (56.75%), increase of services' effectiveness (52.5%) and cost reduction (49.5%) as the major benefits. They also evaluate as very important the simplification of work (42.75%) and the faster programmes' implementation (42%). However, approximately 20% evaluate those benefits as moderate. We recorded a divided opinion on the adoption of innovation as a benefit of the e-services. When they evaluate the benefits for citizens and enterprises, the majority consider as most important benefits timesaving (53.75%) and transparency (44%). They disregard "strengthening of the citizen's role" as a benefit (35.75% consider e-government has moderate effects) and opinions are divided on whether it contributes to "faster response from the public administration". To the last section's question, 15.75% totally agree that PA websites provide useful information and services. The majority either agree or are not certain (45.75% and 33.5% respectively)

Section 2: E-Government services and quality (use and satisfaction)
The questions explore the users' actual knowledge and experience and their expectations from eservices provided by the PA websites. When asked to select websites they had already visited, www.espa.gr is by far the number one website among the surveyed sample, followed closely by Diavgeia. Specifically, 89.5% of the respondents have visited espa.gr and 81% diavgeia.gov. Only one respondent had visited none of the listed websites, which included main PA websites (e.g., espa.gr, antagonistikotita, esfhellas.gr, agrotikianaptyxi.gr etc.), well known e-government websites (e.g., diavgeia, opengov) and few EU websites. The respondents had the option to add relevant websites. They have visited sites related to public procurement (Single Public Procurement Authority, e-procurement), paying mechanisms (Rural Development MIS), OPs and projects' dedicated websites (Interreg, Environment, Home Saving II, Startup Greece) and recently launched ones (National Rural Network). All additional websites came from the public sector and the MAs.
Respondents mainly engage in news reading (87.5%), search for legislation, guidelines, and studies (75%), for calls for tenders or job postings (68.5%) and contact details (63.25%). More than half seek standardised documents (51%). A significant 39.75% look for financing opportunities and 36.25% for statistics. Frequency of visits varies between a 31.25% of the respondents who visit these websites daily and a 16.25% who rarely visit them.
In terms of problems encountered when accessing the websites, the majority of the respondents encountered slight (33.5%) or moderate difficulties (35.5%) regardless of the frequency of their visits recorded in the previous questions. Measuring what matters to users most when they visit a PA website in terms of information, efficiency, communication and security, the respondents place the highest value to the dimension of information and its quality. Very important factors are considered updated and reliable information (63,5%), plain language (56.5%), clear and organised content (57.25%). Nevertheless, personalised information is very important only to 20.25% of the respondents. Dimensions of efficiency, such as ease of navigation and accessibility for the disabled are considered very important by 51.75% and 45.25% of the respondents, respectively. Opinions are divided on the importance of accessibility from mobiles (29.25% rate it very important, but 19.25% consider it of moderate and 10.5% of poor importance). The same applies with attractive design (30.75% consider it very and 38% quite important, 23% of moderate importance). Support services provided by the administrators are considered very important by 44% of the respondents and quite important by 31%. Security, a growing concern among users nowadays, is regarded very important in terms of error-free services (46.75%) and security of the users' transactions and personal data (51,25%).

Section 3: E-Government services and open data (effects)
The third section of the questionnaire focuses with two multifactor questions on how the authorities publish and use open data in the framework of the PA. To this end, we used the Open Data Barometer index (The World Wide Web Foundation, 2017). The majority of the respondents neither agree nor disagree that the PA's public administration is well-resourced to promote open data initiatives (40.25%), engages with civil society and IT professionals on the subject (52%), supports a culture of innovation with open data (46.25%) or has developed such initiatives (46%). By 44% and 44.25% they are also uncertain about training offered to improve skills in the use of open data or in order to build businesses to exploit open data. In fact, large segments disagree with all items and around 11% totally disagree that training opportunities are at all provided. There is also ambivalence on the effect the use of open data has had in managing and delivering EU funds and few totally agree on any effect whatsoever, as Figure 4.16 illustrates. A 32.8% agree that open data have increased the administration's efficiency, but 41.8% are uncertain. A 35.8% agree that open data increased transparency and accountability and 37% that they have improved access to services by minority groups. However, better access did not increase the inclusion of marginalised groups in policymaking (44.5% are not certain, 19.8% disagree and 6.8% totally disagree). There is also disagreement as to the effect of open data on the establishment of new businesses (18.8% disagree and 4.3% totally disagree) and economic development of the country (20.3% disagree and 6.3% totally disagree).

Section 4: Open Government and Participation (drivers)
The section explores the users' expectations of open government and the motivation lying behind eparticipation. It consists of five closed-style questions, including a self-evaluation of the respondents' degree of innovativeness and an open one for their further suggestions or comments. Regarding the question about the importance of a possible variety of services in the websites, open data on public spending (49.75%), one-stop-shop for submitting applications (54.75%), interoperability with other systems (59.5%), e-payments/e-invoices (59%) and user authentication (53.75%) are considered the most important by more than half of the respondents. Services like forum/chat/wikis and presence in social media or surveys/e-voting are considered very important only by around 20% of the participants (by 19.25%, 21.25% and 20.25% respectively). Still, a 40% consider them fairly important or important. The respondents were also asked to rate the importance of a variety of actions aimed at motivating the public to use e-services (Figure 4.18). They totally agree in training the personnel in the MAs, both in technical skills (58%) and change management (50.5%), and in motivating them to adopt innovations (45%). Connectivity through broadband internet and security issues are once again of importance. The least value is placed on public awareness campaigns. Interactive services and response to the citizens is considered as fairly important. Subsequently, respondents were asked to rate the trust they have on services provided by the PA websites. Valid information is trusted "a lot" by 50.25% of respondents and "very much" by 31.75%. Updated content is less trustworthy: 27.5% express a moderate level of trust and 6.25% a slight trust. Accordingly, there is moderate trust regarding protection of personal data (29.25%) although 44% trust a lot the PA websites on this item. Moreover, the respondents express moderate trust in continuous service availability (27.25%), while a 44.75% have a lot of trust.
The section's last question identifies what would motivate users themselves to actively participate, interact within the PA platforms, and engage in e-services in order to contribute to policy-making decisions. The least important factors to them are whether "friends already participate" and whether such services are advertised (only 3.5% and 4.25% respectively would be motivated by people they know or by commercials to participate in polls, forums etc.). A strong motivator, however, is the ability to directly interact with the public administration (24.75% totally agree and 47% agree with this item) and their interest in local issues. The participants' degree of innovativeness is asserted from the closed-end selfevaluation question. They like innovating (47%), however they cautiously adopt innovations (38.75%) and are uncertain (39.25%) whether or not they prefer to first see others using some innovation before adopting it themselves. They like original thinking (49.75%), and difficult problems are challenging to them (46.5%). The participants had the option to add comments or suggestions. Among the 29 who shared their opinion (7.3% of all respondents), 86.2% work in the MAs or the MOU. Nine respondents focused their comments on the use of complex and bureaucratic language and stressed the need for "plain language" in order to facilitate transparency and access to a wider audience. As one user commented "A clean and efficient website for the PA requires human resources dedicated exclusively to this function. The reliability of information is the most important issue. Complex information from many sources requires an efficient, reliable and flexible mechanism for direct sharing of information among MAs so that the citizen can get information directly from the source". Transparency was also among their concerns. They emphasised the need to actually implement suggestions arising from public consultations. Actually, there was a notion of mistrust, as respondents underlined the necessity of timely content updates. A couple of respondents focused both on the necessary training of the employees in the MAs/MOU and on the use of collaborative tools among them. One user referred to the KPI's for the implementation of Public and EU Financed Projects, one of the commitments of the 3 rd National Action Plan on Open Government. In addition, four respondents also suggested one-stop platforms for citizens and enterprises (such as the datagov in the UK), interoperability of the various systems and centralisation of data entry in order to provide integrated services to the public.

Key findings
The review of the results above provides evidence to certain key findings. The e-government services' positive effects to beneficiaries and citizens are widely accepted Moreover, this perception does not vary, regardless of occupation. Both citizens and the public sector/MAs totally agree that they are useful Among the strong supporters of the e-services' benefits, 72% are either employees in the public sector or work in the MAs/MOU. Citizens view more positive impacts from the use of open data than public servants do on the inclusion of marginalised groups in policymaking and on the establishment of new businesses. In addition, motivation factors of utmost importance to encourage the use of eparticipation are the protection of personal data and advanced security systems. The difference among groups by occupation is that citizens place more emphasis on online interactive services and administrators believe that the MAs should undergo technical training and training in change management. The respondents' reasons for participating in online forums/consultations do not differ among them. Citizens regard as a strong motivator the ability to directly interact with the public administration (25% totally agree and 45.16% agree) and among employees in the public sector 24% totally agree and 45% agree. Both groups participate if it is easy and fast to use these tools and absolutely disregard possible peer pressure and advertisements/promotions to do so. They are reserved on the trustworthiness of the consultations' results, and more so the public staff. Moreover, citizens are interested in local administration issues and want to exchange ideas. Secondly, in other areas of the research, our results demonstrate diverse approaches by groups, depending on their occupation or age. MAs and the public sector consider as greatest benefits of e-government for their own work the modernisation of the public administration (56.2%), the increase of services' effectiveness (51.1%) and cost reduction (46.7%). Citizens agree, but in higher numbers (at 58.1%, 55.6% and 55.6% respectively). We also record a different perspective by occupation regarding effects on simplification of work: 40.2% from the public sector believe they have totally benefited, 48.4% from the private sector. Still, in both groups, those considering the benefits to the public administration of moderate value are a considerable segment, especially regarding faster implementation of projects/programmes and simplification of work. Adoption of innovative procedures seems to be the least obvious benefit by all parties involved.
We also observe variations concerning benefits enjoyed by individuals. Citizens identify timesaving (59.7%), financial benefits (38.7%), transparency (37.9%). The factor of transparency has 26% of citizens considering it as of moderate and 6% as of poor impact. The public sector and MAs on the other hand believe that the benefits for citizens and enterprises are timesaving (51%), transparency (47%), financial benefits (27%). Both segments agree that e-services result in a faster -or quite faster-response from the administration and neither has confidence that e-services have strengthened citizens' role. The usefulness of information and services provided is agreed upon by all groups but more so by the MAs/MOU and the public sector ( Figure E.6). Of those who do agree, 73% are either public servants or employees in the MAs, who are often the providers of that information. A few respondents totally agree on the usefulness and a 33.5%, mostly among citizens and public sector employees, are neutral. Both citizens and the public sector basically visit the same websites (espa.gr, diavgeia, opengov, mou.gr and antagonistikotita) and occupation does not differentiate substantially the services they reach for (news, search for calls and legislation/studies). However, public servants/MAs visit more websites and use a wider range of services. Among them, 78% also search for organisational chart/contact information and 60% for standardised forms. Unexpectedly, citizens are less interested in these e-government services (31%) and those downloading datasets/geodata and participating in consultations are less than 10%. Consequently, citizens are less frequent visitors to the PA websites. Although among all respondents 31% visit the websites daily, only 5% of citizens do so. A 32% of citizens visit the websites once/twice a year and 31% even less often, apparently when they really need to. Among the public sector staff, 15% visit daily, 20% weekly, 24% once/twice a year and 25% rarely. All users have moderate or slight difficulties when using e-services. Only an 18.5% (74 respondents) had no difficulties at all, however 66% of them are employed in MAs/MOU and 20% in the broader public sector. Citizens encounter much more difficulties in accessing and fully using the services in the websites with more than half of the respondents facing moderate difficulties.
When respondents evaluate the quality of a PA website, they place the higher value to the dimension of information. In terms of efficiency, user-friendly design and mobile accessibility show low values. However, when we examine these factors, there is a different perspective among age groups. Design is considered very and quite important by the ages 40-49 and less so by the younger generation. Mobile accessibility is deemed very important and quite important by both age groups 18-29 and 40-49. There is also a different perspective among groups by occupation. The administration places far more importance than citizens do on an appealing design and consider mobile accessibility slightly more important than citizens do. Both findings suggest an increased sensitivity of the public sector/MAs as to the services provided. In terms of trust in the online services provided, the degree of trust among citizens and the public sector/MAs differs significantly. Citizens are more reluctant to trust updated content, protection of their personal data and continuous service availability. They also score lower in trusting the validity of the information published. Last, an important finding in the understanding of the results is that the respondents embrace innovation. In their self-assessment, the private and the public sector participants, as well as the MAs/MOU employees consider themselves innovative and original thinkers. Nevertheless, the respondents from the private sector find difficult problems more challenging. Women like original thinking more (38.3% totally agree and 50.64%% agree) in comparison to men (48.48% and 33.94% respectively) and find challenges in difficulties (51.49% agree versus 39.39% of men). However, they are more cautious to adopt innovations than men are. By age group, those 18-29 and those above 50 like innovating the most, however young people are the most cautious in adopting innovations. All age Miranda (2018). With regard to open data, the results are mostly expected. In the Open Data Barometer, Greece ranks 36 th . On readiness to ensure benefits from the publication of open data, Greece scores 56 in government policies, 62 in government action, 78 in citizens and civil rights and 39 in entrepreneurs/businesses. On the assessment if open data release has had impacts, Greece scores 37 in political impacts, zero in social impacts and 12 in economic impacts (The World Wide Web Foundation, 2017). Among the platforms presented (part 2.4 E-government platforms for delivering EU funds to the Greek beneficiaries), anaptyxi.gov.gr provides open data both on site and to the data.gov.gr website. The PA portal (espa.gr) publishes calls of proposals (xls) and the list of operations (csv), the latter however is undecipherable to users with no knowledge of the ESIF management and control system. The EU open data platforms are known to a handful of practitioners and lack publicity through the Greek PA websites. Besides low country rankings and limited open data available on EU funding, academics have anyway expressed reservations on the effect of open data on government's accountability (Yu and Robinson, 2012;Peixoto, 2013) and their research highlights the digital divide among citizens. An initial field research during Athens GovJam confirms that citizens are not aware what exactly open data are, where to find them and how to use them without intermediaries (Janssen, Charalabidis and Zuiderwijk, 2012;Barker et al., 2016;Reggi and Dawes, 2016;Kassen, 2017).
The initial quest of the team in Athens GovJam was to improve open data access for the public. However, field research among mostly university students, redirected the team to tackle with how to raise awareness and how to educate on the use of open data, designing a "treasure hunt" of open data for high school students. It is nonetheless encouraging that citizens perceive more positive impacts from the use of open data than public servants do. The findings on what fosters users' participation reveal a certain mistrust regarding data validity and users' data protection. In addition, respondents stressed the need for actually implementing suggestions arising from public consultations, thus supporting previous academic findings (Panopoulou, Tambouris and Tarabanis, 2014;Wijnhoven, Ehrenhard and Kuhn, 2015;Oliveira, 2016;Schmidthuber et al., 2017). Intrinsic motivation to participate in e-government initiatives has mixed results. It seems to rely less on fun and enjoyment with friends or on publicity, contrary to Wijnhoven's findings (2015). Respondents are however motivated by their interest in the community, involvement in service improvement in direct communication with the public administration and believe such participative tools are easy to use. According to research, users who are already active in the local community in real life, also engage in e-participation platforms (Karamagioli, Staiou and Gouscos, 2014) and perceived ease of use is a significant factor of motivation (Schmidthuber et al., 2017). In this section, we identify again an ambivalence regarding trust in the results of e-participation. Last, responses to the open-ended question, include suggestions almost only from MAs employees, which was expected. Besides practitioners' experience in the field, it is indicative of the top-down approach of innovations in the country's public administration.

Theoretical and Managerial Implications
The current study focused on how e-government in managing and delivering EU funds can transform to a more interactive, open, and accountable policy and governance and reinforce trust in the EU and the national governments. The results have implications relating to academic research. The study confirmed previous findings, such as perceived benefits of e-government (Papadomichelaki and Mentzas, 2011;Fragouli and Vitta, 2012), the need for simplified language and multichannel, user-centered delivery services (Pina, Torres and Royo, 2010;Panopoulou, Tambouris and Tarabanis, 2014), as well as the importance of bridging varying skills and different level of access to e-services (Janssen, Charalabidis and Zuiderwijk, 2012;Meijer, Curtin and Hillebrandt, 2012). Our primary data collection often confirmed academic literature on lack of interactivity and provision of complex datasets, or the minimum data legally required (Reggi and Ricci, 2011), practices which do not foster an accountable and participative governance. In addition, the study highlighted diverse perceptions between the public sector and citizens on issues such as trust, the importance of quality dimensions and value for citizens, the effects of open data and the motives of e-participation. These findings could be further explored. The results of this study have additional implications for potential changes on the managerial level of delivering EU funds to beneficiaries. Both literature review and our findings suggest that to achieve transparency practitioners should focus on simplification of procedures and language. This could be achieved with visualisations, multichannel service delivery and/or the use of educated intermediaries, such as journalists (Reggi and Ricci, 2011). The European Parliament study claims that even "the lists of beneficiaries cannot be understood without knowledge of the complex EU funds" (2016).

Limitations
The current study is subject to limitations. Our research problem was focused on Greece and was narrower than the general concepts of e-and open government on which research is extensive. Academics have not focused on e-government effects towards a more open and democratic planning when managing and implementing cohesion policy either at the European or the national level. Such concerns are mostly raised in policy papers and are the focus of EU commissioned studies. To overcome the above limitations, we adopted a more exploratory research design. The study was further limited by the nature of our sample, where possible bias resulting from their education, occupation and self-reported data answering the questionnaire, requires caution regarding generalisations to the whole population.

Conclusions
The purpose of the study was to identify how e-government services in the field of the EU cofunded programmes and projects can evolve into open government models and enhance citizens' engagement and participation in policymaking in this field. Our review demonstrated that Greece lags behind in European and international indexes on e-government and open government. However, it shows promising signs in certain dimensions, e.g., scoring 72% in the promotion of open data (EU average 73%) or sharply rising to the 35 th position in the UN E-Government Development Index. The EU and national legislative framework are deemed sufficient and Greece has elaborated inspired national action plans in the field of open government -despite delays identified among various projects. Greece also applies promising open government initiatives, combining online and face-to-face consultations in specific policy areas of the EU funds' management. According to the findings of our research, the benefits of egovernment in the field are obvious. Nonetheless, the EU funds' platforms and social media accounts mainly provide stakeholders and individuals with one-way communication and access to information and applications, following the letter of the law on information and transparency. They have not endorsed more user-friendly and user-centred initiatives to foster interactivity and an inclusive policymaking. Consequently, the strengthening of the citizens' role and transparency are not unanimously recognised as obvious benefits. To accommodate the wide range of individual needs, administrators would need to involve end-users in the design process, e.g., organising "jams" or sponsoring hackathons to improve service delivery.
Open data as a means to a more accountable governance have not had an effect and respondents from both the public and the private sector would need training and possibly expert intermediaries to fully exploit their potential. Until now, users still face access barriers due to certain quality dimensions pertaining mostly to not meaningful or easily understandable data. We also identified trust issues, a need of feedback to inputs and of a move to more collaborative forms. Researchers support that trust in government is positively related to trust in e-government sites which depends on information quality,