Legal provisions of SEC(2011)206 - Background information related to the strategy for expanding and developing the Internal Market Information System (‛IMI’) Accompanying document to the Communication on better governance of the Single Market through greater administrative cooperation: A strategy for expanding and developing the Internal Market Information System (‛IMI’).

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EN

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels, 21.2.2011

SEC(2011) 206 final


COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER

Background information related to the strategy for expanding and developing the Internal Market Information System (‛IMI’)

Accompanying document to the Communication on better governance of the Single Market through greater administrative cooperation:

A strategy for expanding and developing the Internal Market Information System (‛IMI’)

Text with EEA relevance

(COM(2011) 75 final)
INTRODUCTION

This Commission staff working document contains background information relevant to the Commission Communication "Better governance of the Single Market through greater administrative cooperation – A strategy for expansion and further development of the Internal Market Information System (IMI)".
SECTION I – How IMI works

IMI has been designed as a reusable tool which can be easily customised to support new legislative areas. In order to reuse the IMI information exchange workflow for a new legislative area, the only effort required is to import a new set of translated question and answer pairs (derived from the relevant legislative provisions) into the IMI database and to ensure that any competent authorities who wish to exchange this information are registered in IMI and have access to the new legislative area.

Competent authorities need only register once in the IMI database and may be granted access to multiple legislative areas, depending on their sphere of competence. Registration in IMI is open to national, regional and local authorities in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway who deal with the specific legislation it supports.


IMI helps its users to:

- find the right authority to contact in another country;
- communicate with them using pre-translated sets of standard questions and answers;
- follow the progress of the information request through a tracking mechanism.

Because Member States have been closely involved in devising the system, IMI offers uniform working methods agreed by every EU country.

For more information on IMI, please see the IMI website: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/imi-net/index.html

The screenshots below illustrate how a Polish competent authority that needs information about a British pharmacist can send a request in Polish to its counterpart in the UK. The UK authority can view and reply to the questions in English.

Screenshot 1- Polish authority’s view of the request


Screenshot 2- U.K authority’s view of the same request



SECTION II - Financial expenditure

A. Overall expenditure on IMI to date

Table (A) below provides an overview of total expenditure on IMI to date and estimated expenditure for the period 2011-2012.

Table A

 2006-2009

(actual €)
2010

(actual €)
2011

planned
2012

planned
Total (€)
(1) Development
2 195 000950 000650,000650,0004 445 000
(2) Maintenance & support services
-400 000350 000350 0001 100 000
(3) Hosting
118 000237 000237 000237 000829 000
(4) Training & promotion
200 000100 000200 000200 000700 000
Total2 513 0001 687 0001 437 0001 437 0007 074 000


B. Financial advantages of a reusable IT system

The original concept of IMI as a reusable tool which could be easily customised to support new legislative areas has been successfully proven with the expansion from a single module covering the Professional Qualifications area to three current modules (Professional Qualifications, Services, Posting of Workers1).

While examining the feasibility of using a specific module of the IMI system to be used in the area of posting of workers in order to further enhance administrative cooperation foreseen under Directive 96/71/EC (concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services), an analysis of the expected costs and benefits carried out showed that no further technical development was required and therefore no development cost would be incurred. A separate and specific application for Posting of Workers has been created in IMI without any IT cost and will be used as a pilot following the adoption of Council Conclusions (foreseen for EPSSCO Council in March 2011).

It is possible to appreciate the potential savings offered by a reusable system, by comparing the cost of developing an electronic information exchange tool from scratch versus adapting or reusing an existing tool.

Table (B) below shows:-

- the actual cost of developing the first (information exchange) workflow from scratch, including common system features (row 1);

- the incremental cost of reusing this information exchange workflow in a separate and specific application to support the Posting of Workers directive (row 2);

- the cost of adapting IMI to develop a second (alert) workflow, reusing the existing common system features (row 3).

Please note that Table B deals with the portion of total development cost associated with the initial development of the two IMI workflows. Subsequent development of IMI has taken place in response to user requests for improvement and in 2010 a new searchable database of registers was developed. These additional costs (included in Table A) are excluded from Table B below.

Table B

IMI featureCost to develop
1. Cost of developing first IMI workflow

- Common features (competent authority database, multilingual support, registration of authorities and users, user management, authentication)

- First workflow (one-to-one information exchange, used for both Professional Qualifications and Services directives)
€1 417 000
2. Incremental cost of re-using the existing information exchange workflow (and common features of IMI) to support the administrative cooperation requirements of the Posting of Workers Directive
€0
3. Incremental cost of developing a new workflow to support the alert mechanism foreseen in the Services Directive, reusing the existing common features of IMI

- Second workflow(one-to-many alert)
€973 500

The cost of development is just one aspect of the total cost of an IT system. Annual costs for hosting, maintenance, second-line support and training as shown in rows 2-4 of Table (A) above should also be factored in. Re-using an existing IT system generates synergies as these costs are not incurred many times over for separate systems.
SECTION III – Essential building blocks for further developing IMI

Building blockFunctionElements already in IMI
Authentication

Verifies whether someone who tries to access the system is an authorised userInternal user name, password and digital code
Competent authority management and authorisationEnables the authorising actor to give others access to the system and to define their user profile (rights to act within the system)

Self-registration module (by invitation)
Multilingual user interfaceEnables the user to work in their language of choice23-language interface and machine translation2

Information Exchange workflowsA pre-structured sequence of interactions between authorities in the system (content may be questions/answers, structured forms, free text, attached files, etc.)

- Information request
- Alert
- Notification
Information request

Alert

Interface with external systems

Enables uploading, sending, storing, receiving and downloading of pre-structured information sets (transfer of information to/from external systems)None
Information repositoryStructured storage capacity for data exchanged or uploaded within the systemCompetent authorities database

Registers database
Search

Capacity to find specific information within any data or within defined categories of data within a databaseVarious searches

Further improvement needed

Report and statisticsGenerates structured reports and statistics on activities and data within the applicationExternal, Business Objects
Webform for external supply and retrieval of dataTechnical means3, which can be used by existing networks for administrative cooperation to allow citizens, enterprises and organisations to interact with the competent authorities in order to supply information and retrieve dataNot available yet

SECTION IV - Indicative list of potential areas that could benefit from IMI

(as identified and (partially) examined by the Commission services and Member States in 2010)

TOPICRelated texts and initiatives
Internal Market
Gambling- No specific legal instrument on gambling
- Council Conclusions 10 December 2010 mentioning IMI
- Public consultation on on-line gambling to be launched in the first quarter of 2011
e-Commerce- Ongoing evaluation of 2000/31/EC
- Article 3.4 on the notification procedure and Article 19 on cooperation between contact points
- Public consultation completed on 5 November 2010
- Communication planned for first semester in 2011
Intellectual property rights- Directive 2004/48/EC requires designation of national correspondents

- 2008 Communication and Council conclusions: mentions setting up a network for exchanging information
Professional qualifications- European professional card, alert system for health professions
- To be examined as part of the review of the Professional Qualifications Directive
Services- Notification procedure (Articles 15.7 and 39.5 of Services Directive 2006/123/EC)
e-Procurement- Public procurement package: Directives 2004/18/EC and 2004/17/EC
- e-CERTIS database to help companies and contracting organisations cope with the documentation demands encountered when tendering for public contracts in the EU
Postal Services- Directive 2008/6/EC on internal market of postal services
- Article 22 on collaboration and mutual assistance of national regulatory authorities
Business registers- Forthcoming proposal for a directive on creating links between company registers
Auditing- Directive 2006/43/EC on Statutory Audit. Article 33 on cooperation between public oversight systems
- Green Paper on audit policy (October 2010) deals with closer cooperation between ‘the national audit oversight systems’ and mentions the idea of a European pass for auditors
Assets Management

- UCITS: Directive 2009/65/EC. Article 34 concerns the need to set up a central system to store a database of all UCITS and related information, including the documentation referred to in Article 93(3) of Directive 2009/65/EC

- AIFM: Proposal for a Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers currently in discussions. Chapter VIII, Section 2 concerns cooperation between Competent Authorities
Insurance and pensions- Revision of 2002/92/EC on insurance mediation
- Article 9 on exchanging information between Member States
- Ongoing public consultation until end of January 2011
Employment and Social Affairs
Posting of workers- A separate and specific application of IMI to be used as a pilot following the adoption of Council Conclusions (foreseen for EPSSCO Council in March 2011)
Coordination of social security systems- Regulation (EC) 883/2004 and its Implementing Regulation (EC) 987/2009
- Potential synergies with IMI

Enterprise and Industry
Marketing of products- Regulation (EC) 765/2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products
- Article 23 on a general archiving and exchange of information system, using electronic means

Free movement of goods


Product Contact Points
- Regulation (EC) No 764/2008 laying down procedures relating to the application of certain national technical rules to products lawfully marketed in another Member State
- Article 11: The Commission may establish a Telematic Network for the exchange of information between Product Contact Points and/or the competent authorities of the Member States
Approval of vehicles- Directives on approval of motor vehicles (2007/46/EC), tractors (2003/37/EC) and three-wheel motor vehicles (2002/24/EC)
- Article 12 (2007/46/EC), Article 13 (2003/37/EC) and Article 4 (2002/24/EC) mention cooperation between approval authorities
Marketing of construction products- Proposal for a regulation on harmonised conditions for the marketing of construction products (repealing Directive 89/106/EEC)
- Chapter VII on notification authorities, including provisions on exchanging experience between authorities (Article 44) and coordination of notified bodies (Article 45)
Economic Affairs
Cross-border cash in transit- Draft regulation on cross-border transportation of euro cash presented in July 2010
- Article 11 on mutual information and National Contact Points
- Articles 20, 22, 23 (notification, alerts)

Justice
Public documents and Civil status documents- Green paper – Less bureaucracy for citizens: promoting free movement of public documents and recognition of the effects of civil status records was adopted on 14/12/2010
Contract Law- Cooperation between judicial authorities in the context of a possible future instrument on European contract law

Transport
Passenger rights- Regulations EU 261/2004, EU 1107/2006, EU 1370/2007, EU 1177/2010 and future Regulation on passenger rights for transport by sea and inland waterways; draft Regulation on Rights of Passengers in bus and coach transport.
- Article 31 of 1371/2007/EC about cooperation between National Enforcement Bodies (for the purposes of the passenger rights regulations, it would be necessary to include opening of registration in IMI to Switzerland and other European third countries which apply EU Law through bilateral agreements)

Vehicle procurement- Directive 2009/33/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport vehicles.
- The Directive requires that energy and environmental impacts linked to the operation of vehicles over their whole lifetime are taken into account in purchase decisions.

Maritime transport policy: ports and inland waterways- New directive which obliges MS to have a single information point for maritime issues (Single Window). The most likely platform to exchange data between ports and authorities is SafeSeaNet, but there may be potential synergies between this system and IMI
Health
Patients rights- Proposal for a directive on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare
- Article 6.2 about cooperation between National Contact Points for cross-border healthcare; Article 10(1) about the exchange of information between MS on standards and guidelines on quality and safety and supervision; Article 10 (2) (b) about the exchange of information on the right to practice of health professionals
Medicinal products- Proposal for a directive on falsified medicinal products currently discussed in first reading
Media
Audiovisual & Media services

(AVMSD)
- Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS): 2010/13/EU
- Article 30 on cooperation and exchange of information between regulators
Education
Europass- Europass Decision 2241/2004/EC
Energy
Energy Efficiency and Intelligent Energy- Labelling Directives
- Energy Star Regulation
- Ecodesign Directive: exchange of information on product testing results between energy performance auditors
SECTION V: IT tools for administrative cooperation (non-exhaustive list)

IT ToolEU policy areaShort descriptionOperational sinceMultilingualExchange volumeNo of registered public authorities
CIRCABCAll policy areasCIRCABC (‘Communication and Information Resource Centre for Administrations, Businesses and Citizens’) is used to create collaborative workspaces where communities of users can work together over the web and share information and resources. It is intended to replace CIRCA (Communication and Information Resource Centre for Administrations), an e-government solution supporting the online collaborative activities of the European Union’s public administrations. Since 1997, CIRCA has operated as an IDA(BC) service and has been used by more than 30 Directorates-General, in particular by the committees and consultative bodies established to support collaboration between the Member States and the EU institutions. More than 100 national administrations have received a free licence and use it for their own needs. The CIRCABC groupware enhances the performance of CIRCA in terms of capacity, security, availability and interoperability. Its user interface will be available in 23 languages.2007Yes
CPCS: Consumer Protection Cooperation SystemConsumer protectionThe aim is to enable information exchange between national authorities and serve as an information repository to improve EU cooperation in the field of consumer protection enforcement. National enforcement authorities are able to exchange information and cooperate with counterparts in other Member States working together to stop rogue traders or any other cross-border breach of consumer protection laws. It tackles breaches in a variety of areas such as misleading advertising, package holidays, timeshares and distance selling. CPCS is used as the IT tool to support the ECC-NET network of European consumer centres.2006Interfaces yes. Translation of information exchanged is the responsibility of the MS1500 over last 4 years3000
EESSI (Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information)Social AffairsThe EESSI system will support information exchanges that take place between the social security institutions of the Member States to implement EU social security coordination rules. The objective is to ensure that all the information exchanges currently taking place through the use of paper E (European) forms will be undertaken by electronic means.Directory services operational since 2010, system for exchanging info will be fully operational in May 2012The structured electronic messages exchanged in the system are translated in 22 official languages of the EU but the translation of information exchanges and software interfaces is the responsibility of the MS.

No data available yet10, 000 - 16 000
ERRUTransportERRU stands for European Registers of Road Transport Undertakings. The system interconnects national electronic registers for road transport undertakings in order to enable Member States to exchange information on infringements and about transport managers in a fully automated mode. The exchange of information is based on Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 establishing common rules concerning the conditions to be complied with to pursue the occupation of road transport operator, Regulation (EC) No 1072/2009 on common rules for access to the international road haulage market and Regulation (EC) No 1073/2009 on common rules for access to the international market for coach and bus services.will be operational in early 2013Almost all content of the messages is predefined and therefore multilingualCompetent Authorities of EU and EFTA countries (one contact point per country)
EUCARIS

(Not managed by Commission)

TransportEUCARIS stands for EUropean CAR and driving licence Information System. The system has been developed by and for national authorities and is operated by a national organisation (RDW). With EUCARIS countries can connect their registries and communicate directly. In 2008 the EUCARIS application was introduced by Council Decisions 2008/615/JHA and 2008/616/JHA (formerly known as the Prüm Treaty) for combating crime and is supposed to connect all EU MS by mid 2011. Currently several Member States are involved in EUCARIS for the exchange of information on vehicle registration (11 Member States) and on driving licences (7 Member States). The exchange is based on different legal frameworks.partly operational in 7 countries ( supposed to be fully operational in 2011)
EUDAMEDHealthEudamed is a secure web-based portal acting as a central repository for information exchange between national competent authorities and the Commission. It is not publicly accessible. Eudamed is currently being used by a number of Member States on a voluntary basis and will be obligatory as from May 2011. The aim of Eudamed is to strengthen market surveillance and transparency in the field of medical devices by providing Member State competent authorities with fast access to information on manufacturers and authorised representatives, on devices and certificates and on vigilance and clinical investigation data. It also contributes to a uniform application of the Directives, in particular for registration requirements.2004No, just ENApprox. 1 Million medical advice messages are being exchangedApprox. 30
European Computerised System for Exchanging Information on Criminal Convictions (ECRIS)JusticeECRIS is a decentralised information technology system based on criminal record databases in Member States. It consists of an interconnection software that allows exchanges of information between national databases and a common communication infrastructure, which will initially be the Trans-European Services for Telematics between Administrations (S-TESTA) network.2012 Yes 100 000 messages per month estimated Not known yet
IMIInternal MarketIMI is a single information system designed to support administrative cooperation obligations under various Directives in the field of the internal market. Currently it is being used to support the Professional Qualifications Directive (2005/36/EC) and the Services Directive (2006/123/EC) and in 2011 a pilot project to support the Posting of Workers Directive (1996/71/EC) is due to begin (still to be confirmed).February 2008Yes1404 in 20095700 public authorities, 10 000 users
RAPEXHealth and Consumer protectionRAPEX is the EU rapid alert system for all dangerous consumer products, with the exception of food, pharmaceutical and medical devices. It allows Member States via central contact points and the Commission to rapidly exchange information on measures taken to prevent or restrict the marketing or use of products posing a serious risk to the health and safety of consumers in accordance with article 22 of Regulation 765/2008.Current version since 2004No Notifications are only being translated into EN. Interfaces will be multilingual in Spring 20111993 in 2009not known
RASFFHealth and Consumer protectionThe Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was put in place to provide food and feed control authorities with an effective tool to exchange information on measures taken responding to serious risks detected in relation to food or feed. This exchange of information helps Member States act more rapidly and in a coordinated manner in response to a health threat caused by food or feed.Since 1979No, information is only translated into EN. Interfaces will become multi-lingual in 2011.8000 for 2009109
RESPERTransportRESPER interconnects national electronic registers for Driving licences in order to enable the Member States Driving Licence issuing authorities an automatic exchange of information in accordance with Directive 126/2006/EC.

Will be operational as of 19 Jan 2013Standardised question sets are available in all languages, free text is not necessary 30 Mio messages per anno Likely that it will include CAs outside the EU and EFTA
SOLVITInternal MarketSOLVIT is an on-line problem solving network in which EU Member States work together to solve without legal proceedings problems caused by the misapplication of Internal Market law by public authorities.July 2002Yes1540 SOLVIT cases were submitted in 2009One Solvit centre per EEA state (30)
TachonetTransportTachonet interconnects national electronic registers for Driver-cards for the Digital Tachograph in order to enable Member States Driver card issuing authorities an automatic exchange of information as stated in Regulation (EEC) n°3821/852005Standardised question sets are available in all languages, free text is not necessary7 Mio messages between Jan - Nov 2010Currently 33 countries (EU Member States and AETR countries); 50 participating States when all AETR countries are connected
TRACESHealth and Consumer protectionTRACES is an internet-based network between veterinary authorities in EU countries and business operators. The system makes it possible to produce and exchange information on all animal health and welfare and public health certificates accompanying animals, semen, embryos and products of animal origin. It speeds up administrative procedures - business operators can make requests online, for imports as well as trade within the EU.2004Interfaces yes. Documents are already available in all languages before they are uploaded to the system.1300 in October 20101000
TRISEnterprise and IndustryIn the field of products and information society services, Directive 98/34/EC obliges Member States to notify to the Commission and to other Member States their technical regulations (rules on information society services) at a draft stage. TRIS contains a database of notifications which can be searched by country, number, date, keyword, etc.1990Draft text is translated into all languages if document is less than 30 pages3099 in 200931


1The decision to begin the Posting of Workers pilot is awaiting adoption of Council conclusions (foreseen for EPSSCO Council in March 2011).

2Following the judgment of the General Court of the European Union in case number T-19/07 on 16 December 2010, the use of ECMT has been suspended

3Such a means of interaction will avoid duplication with existing e-Government portals such as the Points of Single Contact of the Services Directive (PSCs) and e-Government projects such as SPOCS (Simple Procedures Online for Cross-border Services) and PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement Online), instead seeking to reuse existing tools and establish synergies where possible.

EN EN