Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe s3

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

Summary report of the 3rd INSPIRE MIG-P expert group meeting, 4th of December 2015, Rome

Title / Summary report of the 3rd INSPIRE MIG-P expert group meeting
Creator / Joeri Robbrecht, Joachim D'Eugenio
Date created / 14-12-2015
Date modified / 01-06-2016
Subject / Summary report of the 3rd MIG-P meeting, held on 4th December 2015, at ISPRA, Rome (IT) (DRAFT)
Publisher / EC and EEA INSPIRE Team
Type / Text
Description / Summary report and actions of the 3rd MIG-P expert group meeting. This document is the result of the 2nd round of consultation on the summary report in which only track changes were introduced by DE.
Contributor / MIG-P, JRC
Format / MS Word (doc)
Identifier / Summary Report 3rd MIG-P meeting 4122015 Rome
Language / En
Status / Final

Summary report of the MIG-P meeting of 4 Dec 2016

1. Welcome and approval of the agenda

The meeting was opened and chaired by Joachim D’Eugenio (Commission, DG ENV, Deputy Head of Unit D.4 Governance, Information and Reporting).

The meeting was attended by experts of EU Member States (MS), Iceland, Norway, the Commission Services (DG ENV and JRC) and the European Environment Agency (EEA) nominated for the policy sub-group of the Maintenance and Implementation Group for the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. The following Member States were not represented: Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Croatia, Lithuania and Luxemburg. The Hungarian delegation was only present at the beginning of the meeting. A list of participants is available in Annex 1.

The agenda was adopted as proposed. All documents and presentations are available at the collaborative platform of the INSPIRE Maintenance and Implementation Group.

2. Implementation state-of-play and future priorities [Discussion DOC1]

Introduction

The Chair set the scene for the orientation debate on the discussion document “INSPIRE Implementation: taking stock and shaping the future priorities” which was the main focus of the meeting. The discussion was structured into several parts, first a general debate and then a specific discussion for every section of the discussion document. In the first round of a general discussion, Member State experts were given the opportunity to provide general comments on the discussion document as a whole and ask question for clarification. Experts were also asked to identify issues which are not covered by the discussion document but which would merit reflection.

General Discussion

During this first round of discussion the following comments were made:

· The document and the proposed approach were welcomed by a large majority of experts. Some Member States asked about the relationship between the feasibility of the alignment of the proposed priority setting with the existing legal INSPIRE obligations and deadlines. It was important to provide more insight in the practical implementation and impact of the new approach in further discussions before taking any decisions. Several experts highlighted the importance of coordination with the environmental reporting community regarding INSPIRE implementation needs improvement at all levels.

· Several experts argued asked the Commission (in particular DG ENV) that as the owner of the policy, i.e. the Commission (in particular DG ENV), should to take a leading role in convincing the environmental reporting community to participate more actively in INSPIRE implementation. Moreover, the application of INSPIRE at EU level, e.g. in the Commission and the agency, should also be enhanced since it is an important driver also for Member States.

· Some experts expressed the view that current Implementing Rules are too technology-focused and rigid, e.g. when it comes to changes induced by technological evolution. Some experts also considered the INSPIRE Directive, in particular the implementing acts and guidance as too complex and ambitious and difficult to understand by a wider user community or decision-makers. At the same time, stability of the legal framework was also essential for the implementation of the Directive. In this context, someone asked the question “how do we prevent INSPIRE from becoming legacy and can we adapt our specs to the evolution of technology so that INSPIRE stays fit-for-use in modern information systems?”

· A concern for most MS experts is harmonization. Pragmatism for INSPIRE implementation (like setting priorities) was considered as essential.

· It would be valuable to look for extra funding opportunities for implementing the INSPIRE directive. Seen the importance of INSPIRE as in-situ component for e.g. Copernicus and crisis management, we should explore how different EU actions (Copernicus, External Action Service, Digital Single Market …) can be used as funding instrument for implementation.

· The Commission experts and the Chair replied to some of the interventions by highlighting that the Commission services in collaboration with the EEA are aware of their responsibilities and are keen to use the mid-term evaluation and the orientation debate to develop the implementation in a successful way in close collaboration with the Member States. This will be a collaborative effort, e.g. it will be important that improving cooperation between the INSPIRE community and the environmental reporting experts needs to happen at EU but also at national level. Moreover, making non-harmonized spatial data, in particular those related to environmental reporting, available “as-is” would already be a big asset and was already required since 2013. Moreover, there are still public administrations which are not willing to share their data and improving access to data needs further improvements. Finally, it will be useful to decide together on priorities for harmonization for well-defined use cases.

Conclusions of this part of the discussions

Overall, the discussion document was welcomed as a good starting point for the further work. However, more detailed discussions also at national level and further work also after the MIG-P will be needed to develop these ideas further into operational conclusions for the work in the context of the INSPIRE Maintenance and Implementation Framework (MIF). Other important issues which were not (sufficiently) mentioned in the discussion document were, in particular, financing opportunities and collaboration with related policies or initiatives.

2.1 Preliminary findings of the evaluation (REFIT) and implementation report (Art.23 report)

Introduction

The discussion on this section of the discussion document was introduced by Hugo de Groof (Commission, DG ENV) mainly presenting the preliminary findings of the mid-term evaluation of the INSPIRE Directive (REFIT) and tentative conclusions of the related implementation report which will be published in early 2016 also responding to the Article 23 of the Directive.

Discussion

During this specific part of the discussions, the following points were made:

· No fundamental disagreement was voiced vis-à-vis the presented findings of the evaluation and, overall, the proposed conclusions and recommendations were appreciated and shared as a starting point for discussion.

· As regards the point "1.2 A. Reflect on the need to revise specific issues in the INSPIRE Directive and the Implementing Acts" of the discussion document, most Member State experts argued that there is no need to change the INSPIRE Directive at this stage. However, there may be merit in reviewing, and possibly revising, some of the Implementing Regulations to better align the INSPIRE infrastructure with a changing environment and external drivers. Data harmonization is considered the main issue for the moment and near future and consequently the Commission Regulation as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services was put forward as primary candidate for review. This view was supported by most experts.

· One Member State expert suggested to consider developing a simple and generic INSPIRE super-schema which would include schema extensions for other environmental directives that fully align with the INSPIRE schema. This would not require any additional legislation or changes and would be a practical contribution within the MIF to prioritise environmental reporting, reduce burden and improve interoperability at EU and national level. This idea was supported by most experts.

· Some experts raised difficulties with setting up licenses for INSPIRE data sets. One Member State emphasized the need for a transparent and comprehensive licensing framework across Europe that can be used by data providers to publish their data because it was difficult to set up such a framework on national level.

· Besides Implementing Regulations, several participants expressed the need to review some of the current technical guidelines. Some of them are considered too complex and bulky.

· The Chair responded that this feedback was useful and would be particularly relevant for the further development of the work programme (which was discussed at a later point). A more detailed presentation and discussion of the Commission's report and REFIT evaluation would take place at one of the subsequent MIG-P meetings once the documents were adopted.

Conclusions

The discussion showed overall support for the preliminary conclusions and recommendations from the INSPIRE evaluation as a starting point for further developing the cooperation between the Member States and the EU partners on the implementation. Note was taken on some concrete ideas which could feed into the further development of the work programme.

2.2 Priority setting approach – a necessity for the next phase of implementation

Introduction

The priority setting approach and the pyramid illustrating the principles were presented and explained by Joachim D'Eugenio (Commission, DG ENV). The Chair highlighted the importance of setting clear priorities at EU level so that everybody could invest efforts in the same direction which would make it easier to generate and demonstrate benefits of INSPIRE. However, this would not mean that the obligations of the Directive would be changed and the requirements as well as the deadlines would not be altered by any type of priority setting. Moreover, such EU priorities could and should be complemented by national priorities which may differ and can be adapted to national circumstances. The EU priorities could therefore be seen as a minimum first step at EU level to get "quick wins".

Discussion

Following this introduction, the following comments were made:

· Most experts welcomed the proposed priority setting approach and the pyramid and considered it helpful or even essential for the further INSPIRE implementation work. It would help identify data sets in a collaboratively and coordinated way across Europe, allowing Member States to implement INSPIRE in the same way (thematically). Therefore, the EU partners should present a list of datasets which are covered by priority 1. The illustrative list which was circulated was a good starting point.

· Having said this, many experts said that not all concepts of the priority setting pyramid are clear yet and the pyramid still needs some clarification of concepts and terminology so that it can be used at national level by data providers and reporting authorities as an instrument to map data sets to INSPIRE themes and reporting requirements. Everybody asked for more time for discussion to also allow reflections on these issues at national level.

· Some experts made concrete suggestions such as to focus on level one and two to deliver them as soon as possible. Moreover, a more detailed priority setting approach may also need to be developed for each environmental legislation. This would stimulate competent authorities responsible for reporting to use the same approach and facilitate coordination.

· As contribution to the debate, Dag Høgvard (NO) gave a short presentation that highlights the need for a commonly agreed set of public authority reference data. He argued that it may be a good idea to not only have just one pyramid, but three pyramids: one for Annex I, one for Annex II and one for Annex III.

· In response, the Chair welcomed the ideas and feedback and underlined again that there are no legal obligations attached to this pyramid. The pyramid represents an organization of the data and a priority setting on the EU-level.

Conclusions

The MIG-P recognized that this was an important issue and that the proposals were a good input which needs to be discussed further also at national level. More clarity will be needed on some issues and reflections on how to best making this approach operational. The minimum list of datasets for priority 1 would be an important starting point. The next MIG-P meeting will come back to these issues with the view to developing this priority setting ideas further. Also tThe MIG-T was also invited to reflect upon these issues.

2.3 Enforcement, compliance promotion actions and bi-lateral meetings with the Member States

Introduction

The Chair presented the different instruments that the Commission is using for enforcement and compliance promotion in relation to the INSPIRE Directive. As part of this approach, DG Environment has initiated a series of bilateral meetings with Member States where the implementation progress and gaps are discussed with the view identifying solutions. As a result, all Member States were invited (whether a bilateral meeting had taken palce or not) to prepare a forward-looking action plan to address existing implementation gaps as part of the May 2016 INSPIRE report. The Commission services will take this action plan into account when assessing the progress of the different countries.

Discussion

The following issues were raised:

· Most Member States welcomed this approach and some experts who already participated in such bilateral meetings acknowledge that they had been useful. Others indicated the wish to have a bilateral whereas some stated that this would not be necessary for them at this stage but they would prefer an exchange in writing.

· Some experts expressed the wish to have a more detailed template for preparing such action plans.

· The Chair replied that it was not envisaged to prepare any specific templates but that Member States should use the structure and the questions included in the background document which was sent to all Member States (see document). Moreover, the current reporting template already had room for addressing such forward-looking actions and it was up to the Member States to integrate their action plan into the report or present it as a standalone document in addition to their report. The Commission services will also make all the outcomes of the bilateral meetings as well as the action plans available in the shared space on our collaboration platform.

Conclusions

The MIG-P experts welcomed the information and the overall approach of addressing such issues in a collaborative manner. All Member States took note of the Commission's request for preparing an action plan and, if no bilateral meeting had taken place, will reply in writing on their position regarding these issues.