Interoperable Europe act: member states agree common position

With a view to creating a network of interconnected digital public administrations and accelerating the digital transformation of Europe’s public sector, member states’ representatives (Coreper) reached a common position on the proposed legislation regarding measures..

Objectives of the proposal

The draft regulation aims to set up a new cooperation framework for EU public administrations to ensure the seamless delivery of public services across borders, and to provide for support measures promoting innovation and enhancing skills and knowledge exchange.

The proposed regulation will establish an interoperability governance structure with a view to creating an ecosystem of shared interoperability solutions for the EU’s public sector. This way, public administrations in the EU and other stakeholders can contribute to and re-use such solutions, innovate together and create added value.

Main elements retained from the Commission’s proposal

The Council’s common position maintains the general thrust of the Commission’s proposal, namely as regards:

  • rules ensuring a structured EU cooperation where public administrations, supported by public and private actors, come together in the framework of projects co-owned by member states, as well as regions and cities
  • a multi-level governance framework steered by the ‘Interoperable Europe Board’ and mandated inter alia to agree on common reusable resources
  • the sharing and reuse of interoperability solutions, powered by a one-stop-shop for solutions and community cooperation (‘Interoperable Europe portal’) and supported by measures to promote innovation, and enhance skills and knowledge exchange.

The Council’s amendments

The Council’s text amends various parts of the Commission’s proposal. The main changes include:

  • a clearer definition of the scope of the proposed legislation
  • clarifications concerning the objectives and the conditions of the mandatory interoperability assessment with a view to complying with the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity
  • alignment with the artificial intelligence act (AIA) with respect to regulatory sandboxes and consistency with the general data protection regulation (GDPR)
  • a stronger role for the Interoperable Europe Board, which stands at the core of the new governance structure set up by the regulation.

Next steps

Today’s agreement on the Council’s common position (“negotiating mandate”) will allow the Spanish presidency to enter negotiations with the European Parliament (“trilogues”) on the final version of the proposed legislation. The first trilogue is scheduled to take place on 10 October at the Council premises.

Background

In the past years, digital government and data experts have developed wide-ranging common interoperability cooperation practices based on the current European Interoperability Framework (EIF). The EIF is Europe’s widely recognised conceptual model for interoperability. However, recent evaluations have exposed serious limitations of this entirely voluntary cooperation approach.

EU Member States have increasingly stressed the need to strengthen European interoperability cooperation. Among others, the ministerial declarations signed in 2017 in Tallinn and 2020 in Berlin attest to this necessity.  With a view to addressing these needs, the Commission adopted the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down measures for a high level of public sector interoperability across the Union (‘Interoperable Europe Act’) on 18 November 2022. On 2 June 2023, the TTE (Telecommunications) Council took note of a progress report on this file.