Viewed by the proportion of individuals using the Internet for interacting with public authorities, Finland is one of the top countries within the EU-27 to do so. This conclusion can be made from the latest Eurostat statistics on the information society. Other top scorers are Sweden, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark.

But according to other figures issued by the European Commission, as published by the Finacial Times on Thursday, Malta ranks middle of the table with regard to broadband penetration.

The percentage of individuals (aged 16 to 74) who in 2006 acquired information from public authorities’ websites is:

Sweden (2005) 48.7; Netherlands 46.0; Finland 40.5; Denmark 39.3; Luxembourg 36.3; Austria 28.9; Slovenia 28.0; Germany 27.8; Slovakia 27.2; Estonia 26.6; Belgium 25.6; France 24.4; Spain 23.7; Latvia 22.6; United Kingdom (2005) 22.1; Ireland 21.3.

The report adds that the Eurostat table does not record figures for Malta.