Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2004)516 - Infrastructure for spatial information in the EC (INSPIRE) - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2004)516 - Infrastructure for spatial information in the EC (INSPIRE). |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2004)516  |
| date | 23-07-2004 |
Good policy depends on high-quality information and informed public participation. Policy-makers have recognised the growing interconnection and complexity of the issues affecting the quality of life today, and this recognition is influencing the way new policies are now being formulated. For instance, the Sixth Environment Action Programme (6th EAP) i emphasises that environment policy needs to be based on sound knowledge and informed participation, and this new approach is transforming the way EU environment policy decisions are being taken.
A new approach is therefore needed to deal with monitoring and reporting and with data management and delivery across the different levels of government. Policies need to be employed to reduce duplicated data collection and to assist and promote the harmonisation, broad dissemination and use of data. Such policies should result in increased efficiency, the benefits of which can be reinvested in improving the availability and quality of information. In turn, the increased availability of information will stimulate innovation among information providers in the commercial sector.
Spatial information can play a special role in this new approach because it allows information to be integrated from a variety of disciplines for a variety of uses. A coherent and widely accessible spatial description of the Community territory would deliver the requisite framework for coordinating information delivery and monitoring across the Community. Spatial information may also be used to produce maps, which are a good way of communicating with the public. Unfortunately, the technical and socio-economic characteristics of spatial information make the problems of coordination, information gaps, undefined quality and barriers to accessing and using the information particularly acute.
The Commission has therefore decided to submit to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union the present proposal to make interoperable spatial information readily available in support of both national and Community policy and to enable the public to access to this information. This initiative derives from the commitment of several Commission services in particular DG Environment, Eurostat and the Joint Research Centre, who have already and will continue to play an important role in the adoption and implementation of this Directive.
The proposed Directive creates a legal framework for the establishment and operation of an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe, for the purpose of formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating Community policies at all levels and providing public information.
A key objective of INSPIRE is to make more and better spatial data available for Community policy-making and implementation of Community policies in the Member States at all levels. INSPIRE focuses on environmental policy but is open for use by and future extension to other sectors such as agriculture, transport and energy.
The proposal focuses specifically on information needed in order to monitor and improve the state of the environment, including air, water, soil and the natural landscape. Much of this information needs to be underpinned by 'multi-purpose' spatial data. In an infrastructure for spatial information, not all spatial data themes need to be subject to the same degree of harmonisation, nor can they be brought within the infrastructure at the same pace. This Directive therefore contains three distinct annexes, all of which refer to spatial data needed by a broad range of environmental policies. Depending on whether spatial data is to be used for geo-referencing other spatial data, on whether harmonised spatial data is needed within the context of policies that directly or indirectly affect the environment and on the degree to which harmonisation is already underway within the Community, different target dates for implementing INSPIRE requirements and different stringency levels for harmonisation apply. It should be noted that the spatial data themes in the annexes determine only the scope of the directive and of the measures referred to. They do not determine how spatial information should be organised or harmonised.
INSPIRE will not set off an extensive programme of new spatial data collection in the Member States. Instead, it is designed to optimise the scope for exploiting the data that are already available, by requiring the documentation of existing spatial data, the implementation of services aimed at rendering the spatial data more accessible and interoperable and by dealing with obstacles to the use of the spatial data. INSPIRE will pave the road for a progressive harmonisation of spatial data in the Member States.
The main beneficiaries of this proposal will therefore be those involved in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies - at the European, national and local level. These are public authorities, legislators and citizens and their organisations. However, other user groups are also expected to benefit, including the private sector, universities, researchers and the media. The proposal will support the formulation and implementation of a wide range of environmental and other policies.
Detailed spatial information is available in Europe to support a broad range of policies. Indeed, map-based information is used in many reporting, analysis, evaluation and forecasting tools and activities. In addition, the emergence of the Internet has allowed widespread and low-cost distribution of this type of information and could contribute to better public understanding and awareness of various policy issues.
Despite these many initiatives, widespread access to and use of spatial information is still a problem in Europe. The main problems relate to data gaps, missing documentation, incompatible spatial data sets and services due e.g. to varying standards, and barriers to the sharing and reuse of spatial data.
Fortunately, awareness is growing at national and EU level that quality geo-referenced information is needed in order to understand the complexity of ever-increasing human activity in the EU and to contain its adverse impact, and many regional and national initiatives are being taken. Furthermore, new instruments such as the GALILEO navigation system i will improve precision and reliability in elaborating spatial information. Yet even in these circumstances, action at Community level is necessary because:
* Few Member States have developed a framework for establishing a national infrastructure for spatial information that addresses operational, organisational and legal issues. i Where steps have been taken, they have often been restricted to specific regions or specific sectors.
* In most Member States where a framework has been adopted, not all problems have been addressed or initiatives are not compatible.
* Without a harmonised framework at Community level, the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national and Community policies that directly or indirectly affect the environment will be hindered by the barriers to exploiting the cross-border spatial data needed for policies which address problems with a cross-border spatial dimension.
Several other Community instruments designed to promote the availability of public sector information already exist or are being developed. The most important are the Directive on public access to environmental information i, the Directive on the re-use of public sector information i, GMES i and GALILEO.
However, additional measures are needed to fuse and streamline policy-relevant spatial data from different sectors and at different levels in order to exploit the full potential of spatial information. The INSPIRE proposal therefore complements these instruments and will assist their implementation.
Account will also need to be taken of the existing legal framework in relation to data protection and copyright.
In June 2002, the Commission introduced a new integrated procedure for impact assessment to improve the quality and coherence of the policy development process. i INSPIRE is on the list of proposals of the 2003 Work Programme for which the Commission decided to carry out an extended impact assessment. i An extended impact assessment has therefore been carried out for INSPIRE, which considered six policy options. i
The required investment of the preferred option - a focused framework backed by an EU framework Directive - will to a large extent be borne by the public sector and is estimated at an average of EUR3.6-5.4 million per annum per EU Member State (EU25). This would represent only 1% of the total expenditure on spatial information.
The benefits include environmental gains, wider social benefits and gains by the private sector. Only the environmental benefits have been quantified. The average annual benefits per Member State (EU25) amount to EUR27-42 million. Knowing that these elements only represent a partial view of the whole picture, the conclusion is that the benefits outweigh the investment requirements by a considerable amount.
The purpose of the Internet consultation was to inform stakeholders about the INSPIRE initiative and to receive their opinions and comments about the different key points that need to be covered by the proposed INSPIRE framework directive. The Internet consultation took place between 29 March and 6 June 2003.
A total of 185 organisations and individuals from the EU Member States and the accession countries responded to the Internet consultation. Their replies represent feedback from over 1 000 organisations.
The results of the Internet consultation showed a very high level of agreement of the stakeholders with the assessment of the obstacles and their consequences and demonstrated a high level of support of the stakeholders for the proposed INSPIRE initiative. Over 90% of the respondents replied positively to many of the questions asked on the existence of obstacles and on the need for the measures to be developed in the framework of INSPIRE. An extensive analysis of the results of the Internet consultation is available on the Internet (inspire.jrc.it/).
The public hearing took place in Rome on 10 July 2003. The objective of the public hearing was to inform parties interested in INSPIRE about the results of the Internet consultation and to obtain feedback on the draft extended impact assessment of INSPIRE. The report of the hearing is available on the Internet ().
Contents
- Legal elements of the proposal
- 2. Overview of the Proposal
- 3. The need for Community intervention
- 4. Consistency with other policies
- 5. Extended impact assessment
- 6. Stakeholders consultation on INSPIRE
- 6.1. Internet consultation
- 6.2. Public hearing
- 7.1 Legal basis
- 7.2 Subsidiarity and proportionality
Article 175 i of the EC Treaty is the appropriate legal basis because the spatial data that fall within its scope are needed to support the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of environmental policies with a view to ensuring a high level of environmental protection. Furthermore, Article 174 requires the Community to take account of available scientific and technical data. INSPIRE contributes to the implementation of this requirement by helping the Community to access and use available spatial data.
Some of these spatial data are also needed in the context of other national and Community policies, such as agricultural, transport or regional policy. The choice of legal basis is consistent with the need to integrate environmental considerations into these other policies, with a view to promoting sustainable development.
The subsidiarity principle is intended to ensure that decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen and that constant checks are made as to whether action at European level is justified in the light of the options available at national, regional or local level.
Environmental phenomena such as migration of species, wind, flows of water happen irrespective of national borders. In addition, pressures and impacts on the environment (flooding, air and water pollution, etc.) often cross national borders. Environmental policies therefore require the establishment of environmental management entities covering the territory of various Member States, such as the river basin districts established under the Water Framework Directive i. Efficient implementation and monitoring of such policies require interoperable spatial information across national borders and streamlined access and use of this information by all concerned stakeholders. The proposed Directive will provide consistent Community-wide documentation of spatial data and data quality, more Community-wide spatial information of greater consistency, integrated Community-wide services to find, access this information and Community-wide rules related to access, sharing and use of the information. Without this Directive, Member States would have great difficulties making their existing systems interoperable, accessible and useable across borders. This would lead to more duplication and inefficient data collection, and would hamper formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national and Community policies that directly or indirectly affect the environment.
The proposed Directive does not go beyond what is needed to achieve its objectives. It is designed to build upon the variety of existing information systems already in place in the Member States and provides the overall framework for them to be able to work in synergy with each other, forming part of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community. INSPIRE will also build upon existing organisations already involved in spatial data use and production and provide, as far as organisational issues are concerned, only the overall coordination mechanisms needed for the infrastructure to operate at the European level. As regards harmonisation, INSPIRE will address only those aspects needed to achieve cross-level and cross-thematic consistency of spatial data and to make them available to support Community policies. For instance, INSPIRE does not require Member States to change the format of their spatial data holdings; instead, Member States can provide interfaces that transform heterogeneous data to a uniform model.
The present proposal takes the form of a framework Directive in order to leave the Member States ample room to ensure that the requisite measures for achieving the prescribed objectives are tailored to their specific situations. Implementing rules of a technical and more prescriptive nature are to be adopted through the committee procedure. These are necessary to ensure the overall coherence the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe needs in order to meet the objective of supporting Community policies. Use of the committee procedure also ensures sufficient flexibility to adapt the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe to technological progress and to emerging policy priorities.
The proposal tackles only those aspects that need to be regulated at EU level to ensure that the objectives of the EC Treaty are met. Most of the measures allow the Member States to continue to operate their existing systems and organisational set-up, by requiring only those measures needed to make existing systems interoperable or eliminate existing barriers.Furthermore, specific limitations have been introduced in order to prevent any disproportionate additional administrative burden on Member States and the proposal also introduces safeguards to ensure that it does not stifle innovation, by guaranteeing openness to private sector participation7.3 How have the results of the consultation of stakeholders and of the extended impact assessment been taken into account in the proposal?
The results of the extended impact assessment and the comments made by interested parties served as the basis for a review of the measures set out in the INSPIRE Internet consultation document and the draft extended impact assessment, resulting in a proposal based upon option 4 of the extended impact assessment. Compared with the measures set out in the INSPIRE Internet consultation document:
* The proposal's scope has been reduced, in response to concerns over budgetary issues and the level of ambition of INSPIRE. The revision of the scope amounts to a 35% reduction in terms of the number of spatial data themes covered by INSPIRE.
* The requirements relating to the collection of new multi-thematic spatial data on the state of the environment have been dropped.
* Harmonisation requirements are reduced for certain spatial datasets mostly of a thematic nature, allowing greater exploitation of the synergies between INSPIRE and existing harmonisation activities.
* The openness of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe is guaranteed by providing the private sector with the possibility of uploading relevant spatial data and services on a voluntary basis under certain conditions.
* The interlinkages between INSPIRE and GMES have been clarified.
* The organisation of the annexes and the descriptions of the spatial data themes have been revised.
* Provisions have been introduced on monitoring and reporting.
Many of the comments relate, however, to implementation, and will be taken into account for the implementation of INSPIRE.