Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

RemovedArticle 7 – paragraph 1: The Interoperable Europe Board shall recommend interoperability solutions for the cross-border interoperability of network and information systems which are used to provide or manage public services to be delivered or managed electronically in the Union. When an interoperability solution is recommended by the Interoperable Europe Board, it shall carry the label ‘Interoperable Europe solution’ and shall be published on the Interoperable Europe portal. The Interoperable Europe Board may withdraw such recommendations, upon which the ‘Interoperable Europe solution’ label shall be removed from the relevant interoperability solutions and the interoperability solutions shall be deleted from the portal, where appropriate.

Added(4a) Public bodies, Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies should pursue the development of interoperability solutions in a holistic manner that ensures data quality, transparency and data protection. In this context, self-governing IT solutions should be incentivised.

RemovedArticle 8 – paragraph 1 – introductory part: 1. The Commission shall provide a portal (‘the Interoperable Europe portal’) as a single point of entry for information related to cross-border interoperability of network and information systems which are used to provide or manage public services to be delivered or managed electronically in the Union. The portal shall be easy to access electronically and free of charge. The portal shall have at least the following functions:

Added(4b) Interoperability solutions and exchanges of data should also be designed and used taking into account the confidentiality principles which pertain to fundamental rights.

RemovedArticle 8 – paragraph 1 – point g a (new): (ga) other functions established by the Interoperable Europe Board.

Added(4c) In the pursuit of cross-border interoperability and the digital public services infrastructure, it is crucial to safeguard the privacy and protection of personal data. The interoperability measures established under this Regulation should be designed and implemented in a manner that respects the principles of data protection rules.

RemovedThe Board should be able to influence the development of the portal and assign additional functionalities.

Added(5) Cross-border interoperability is not solely enabled via centralised Member State digital infrastructures, but also through a decentralised approach. This entails a strong connection of trust between public administrations and a constant data exchange between local administrations in different Member States without necessarily going through national nodes. Therefore, it is necessary to develop common solutions across all administrative levels, particularly for specifications and applications. Needs for cross-border digital interactions are increasing, which requires solutions that can fulfil these needs. With this Regulation, the intention is to facilitate and encourage the exchange between all levels of administration, overcome cross-border barriers and administrative burden, consolidate more efficient public services at the European level.

RemovedArticle 11 – paragraph 1: 1. Regulatory sandboxes shall provide an environment for the development, testing and validation of innovative interoperability solutions for a limited period of time before putting them into service.

Added(6) Interoperability facilitates successful implementation of policies, in particular those with a strong public sector connection, such as justice and home affairs, taxation and customs, transport, energy, health, agriculture, and employment, as well as in business and industry regulation. However, a single sector interoperability perspective is associated with the risk that the adoption of different or incompatible solutions at national or sectoral levels will give rise to new electronic barriers that impede the proper functioning of the internal market and the associated freedoms of movement. Furthermore, it risks undermining the openness and competitiveness of markets and the delivery of services of general interest to businesses and citizens. Therefore, this Regulation should also facilitate, encourage and apply to cross-sector interoperability removing electronic barriers, public service incompatibilities and fragmentation.

RemovedArticle 13 – paragraph 2: 2. The Commission shall organise training courses on interoperability issues at Union level to enhance cooperation and the exchange of best practices between the staff of public sector bodies, institutions, bodies and agencies of the Union. The courses shall be announced on the Interoperable Europe portal and shall be free of charge.

Added(6a) Without prejudice to the interoperability and digitalisation of key public services and services which depend crucially on digital technologies, offline accessibility of services should nevertheless be maintained while transitioning to digital and interoperable tools, in the interests of the most vulnerable, less digitally-skilled population.

RemovedArticle 14 – paragraph 2: 2. The peer review shall be conducted, at the request of a public sector body, by interoperability experts drawn from Member States other than the Member State where the public sector body undergoing the review is located. The Commission may, after consulting the Interoperable Europe Board, adopt guidelines on the methodology and content of the peer-review.

Added(6b) Interoperable key public services should contribute to achieving solutions that have positive effects on citizens’ everyday life and their wellbeing, advancing transparency, accessibility and good-quality public services based on a highly competitive social market economy, in accordance with the European Pillar of Social Rights.

RemovedClarifies that the peer review as such is voluntary.

Added(7) In order to eliminate fragmentation in the interoperability landscape in the Union, a common understanding of interoperability in the Union and a holistic approach to interoperability solutions should be promoted. A structured cooperation should support measures promoting digital-ready and interoperable by default policy set-up. Furthermore, it should promote the efficient management and use of digital service infrastructures and their respective components by public sector bodies and institutions, bodies and agencies of the Union that permit the establishment and operation of sustainable and efficient cross-border public services with the aim of ensuring accessibility up to the lowest administrative division.

RemovedArticle 15 – paragraph 2 – point b – point i a (new): (ia) the European Parliament ;

Added(8) To set up cross-border interoperable public services, it is important to focus on the interoperability aspect as early as possible in the policymaking process following the 'digital-by-default' principle and 'interoperability-by-design' approach. Therefore, the public organisation that intends to set up a new or to modify an existing network and information system that is likely result in high impacts on the cross-border interoperability, should carry out an interoperability assessment. This assessment is necessary to understand the magnitude of impact of the planned action and to propose measures to reap up the benefits and address potential costs. In order to ensure the smooth implementation of the interoperability assessment, the Interoperable Europe Board should publish specific guidelines on which services are covered by the directive. In cases where an interoperability assessment is mandatory, the Commission should take steps to ensure that local and regional authorities do not incur any disproportional additional costs, amongst others by making financial resources available. The interoperability assessment should be mandatory in three cases, which are in scope for cross-border interoperability. In other situations, the public organisations may decide to carry out the interoperability assessment on a voluntary basis.

RemovedArticle 15 – paragraph 4 – point a: (a) support the implementation of national interoperability frameworks and other relevant Union or national policies, strategies or guidelines;

Added(8a) One of the barriers for interoperability, reuse of solutions and establishment of cross border services is the language barrier, therefore standardisation of logical structures is a key aspect in the creation of interoperable systems. In that regard special care must be given to multilingualism in the public service sector and linguistic diversity, aiming to facilitate the use and preservation of regional languages and dialects.

RemovedArticle 15 – paragraph 4 – point r a (new): (ra) propose new functionalities for the European Interoperability portal.

Added(9) Under some circumstances it may also be reasonable and economical for the subject of an interoperability assessment to be broader than a single project, for example when public sector bodies intend to establish a common application or processing platform. In those other cases, the assessment should be strongly encouraged to go beyond the achievement of the Interoperable Europe objectives towards a full implementation of interoperability. The Interoperable Europe Board when adopting the guidelines on the content of the interoperability assessment, should, amongst other elements, take into account the capacity of regional and local public bodies and avoid an excessive burden for such authorities.

RemovedArticle 16 – paragraph 5: 5. The Interoperable Europe Board shall organise at least once a year an online assembly of the Interoperable Europe Community.

Added(10) The interoperability assessment should evaluate the impacts of the planned action on cross-border interoperability of network and information system, for example, having regard to the origin, nature, particularity and scale of those impacts. The outcome of that assessment should be taken into account when determining the appropriate measures that need to be taken in order to set up or modify the network and information system.

RemovedArticle 19 – paragraph 2 – point d a (new): (da) the main objectives of the Agenda and the key performance indicators for measuring the achievement of those objectives.

Added(11) The organisation should publish the outcome of the interoperability assessment on its website and share it electronically with the Commission for publication on the Interoperable Europe portal. The publication of the outcome should not compromise intellectual property rights or trade secrets, and should be restricted where justified on the grounds of public order or security. The provisions of Union law governing the protection of personal data should be observed.

Added(12) Public sector bodies or institutions, bodies or agencies of the Union that search for interoperability solutions should be able to request from other public sector bodies or institutions, bodies or agencies of the Union the software code those organisations use, together with the related documentation. Sharing should become a default among public sector bodies, and institutions, bodies and agencies of the Union while not sharing would need a legal justification. In addition, public sector bodies or institutions, bodies, or agencies of the Union should seek to develop ▌or to further develop existing interoperability solutions. That should prioritize solutions that do not carry restrictive licensing terms.

Added(13) When public administrations decide to share their solutions with other public administrations or the public, they are acting in the public interest. This is even more relevant for innovative technologies: for instance, open code makes algorithms transparent and allows for independent audits and reproducible building blocks. The sharing of interoperability solutions among public administration should set the conditions for the achievement of an open ecosystem of digital technologies for the public sector that can produce multiple benefits.

Added(14) When monitoring the coherence of the interoperability solutions and proposing measures to ensure their compatibility with existing solutions that share a common purpose, the Interoperable Europe Board should take into account the obsolescence of solutions. The mandate of the Interoperable Europe Board should cover issues related to all four levels of interoperability (legal, organisational, semantic and technical).

Added(15) The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) should ensure coherence and be recognised as the single point of reference for the Union’s approach to interoperability in the public service sector. In addition, specialised interoperability frameworks can address the needs of specific sectors, domains or administrative levels. Those frameworks should further promote the implementation of interoperability solutions. They should take due account of the interoperability requirements set in accordance with Regulation [XX] (Data Act)].

Added(15a) The EIF should further the principle of multilingualism in the public service sector and encourage use of the most advanced technologies (such as artificial intelligence) to preserve linguistic diversity while enhancing efficiency of the exchanges between information systems across language boundaries.

Added(16) The EIF should be developed by the Interoperability Europe Board, composed, among others, by one representative of each Member State. The Member States, with the other members of the Interoperable Europe Board, are thus at the centre of the development and implementation of the EIF. The Interoperable Europe Board should update the EIF when necessary.

Added(17) The specialised interoperability frameworks issued to complement the EIF should take into account and not prejudice the existing sector-specific frameworks developed at the Union level (for example in the health sector).

Added(18) Interoperability is directly connected with, and dependent on the use of open specifications and standards. Therefore, the Union public sector should be allowed to agree on cross-cutting open specifications and other solutions to promote interoperability. The new framework should provide for a clear process on the establishment and promotion of such agreed interoperability solutions in the future. This way, the public sector will have a more coordinated voice to channel public sector needs and public values into broader discussions.

Added(19) Many interoperability specifications used by the public sector could be derived from existing Union legislation. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a link between all specifications for public sector network and information systems that are mandatory to use due to Union legal provisions. It is not always easy for implementing authorities to find the requirements in the most recent and machine-readable format. A single point of entry and clear rules on the metadata of such information should help public sector bodies to have their digital service infrastructures comply with the existing and future rules.

Added(20) An Interoperable Europe portal should be built on existing initiatives and established as an easily accessible point of reference for interoperability solutions, assessment, knowledge and community. The portal should be established as a link to official sources but should also be open to input from the Interoperable Europe Community.

Added(21) The Interoperable Europe portal should make publicly available and free of charge 5RE solutions that follow the EIF principles of openness, technical neutrality and security. As open source enables users to actively assess and inspect the interoperability and security of the solutions, it is important that open source supports the implementation of interoperability solutions. In this context, the use of open source licences should be promoted to enhance legal clarity and mutual recognition of licences in the Member States.

Added(21a) Member States, regional and local authorities as well as the Union institutions, agencies and bodies implementing Union-funded funded interoperable projects for public services based on open source should take into account the dedicated European Public License (EUPL).

Added(22) At the moment, the Union’s public services delivered or managed electronically depend in many cases on non-Union providers. It is in the Union’s strategic interest to ensure that it retains and develops essential technological capacities to secure its Digital Single Market, to enhance Europe's digital sovereignty and in particular to ensure service delivery, protect critical network and information systems, and to provide key services. The Interoperable Europe support measures should help public administrations to evolve and be capable of incorporating new challenges and new areas in cross-border contexts. Interoperability is a condition for avoiding technological lock-in, enabling technical developments, and fostering innovation, which should boost the global competitiveness, resilience and open strategic autonomy of the Union. The parallel use of multiple data processing services could be encouraged. This is important, inter alia, for the successful deployment of ‘multi-cloud’ strategies, which allow customers to implement future-proof IT strategies and which decrease dependence on individual providers of data processing services.

Added(23) It is necessary to establish a governance mechanism to facilitate the implementation of Union policies in a way that ensures interoperability. This mechanism should focus on the interoperable digital implementation of policies once they have been adopted in the form of legal acts and should serve to develop interoperability solutions on a needs-driven basis. The mechanism should support public sector bodies. Projects to support public sector bodies should be proposed by the Interoperable Europe Board to the Commission who should decide whether to set up the projects, with due regard to the need to encourage the development and deployment of free and open source solutions at all levels, including the local and regional ones.

Added(24) All levels of government should cooperate with innovative organisations, be it companies or non-profit entities, in design, development and operation of public services. Supporting GovTech cooperation between public sector bodies, research and educational institutions, start-ups and innovative SMEs, or cooperation mainly involving civil society organisations (‘CivicTech’), is an effective means of supporting public sector innovation, flexibility and promoting use of interoperability tools across private and public sector partners. Supporting an open GovTech ecosystem in the Union that brings together public and private actors across borders and involves different levels of government should allow to develop innovative initiatives aimed at the design and deployment of GovTech interoperability solutions.

Added(25) Identifying shared innovation needs and priorities and focusing common GovTech and experimentation efforts across borders would help Union public sector bodies to share risks, lessons learnt, and results of innovation support projects. Those activities will tap in particular into the Union’s rich reservoir of technology start-ups and SMEs. Successful GovTech projects and innovation measures piloted by Interoperable Europe innovation measures should help scale up GovTech tools and interoperability solutions for reuse.

Added(26) Interoperable Europe support measures could benefit from safe spaces for experimentation, while ensuring responsible innovation and integration of appropriate risk mitigation measures and safeguards. To ensure a legal framework that is innovation-friendly, future-proof and resilient to disruption, it should be made possible to run such projects in innovation sandboxes. Innovation sandboxes should consist in controlled test environments that facilitate the development and testing of innovative solutions before such systems are integrated in the network and information systems of the public sector. The objectives of the innovation sandboxes should be to foster interoperability through innovative solutions by establishing a controlled experimentation and testing environment ▌

Added▌

Added(28) It is necessary to enhance a good understanding of interoperability issues, especially among public sector employees. Continuous training is key in this respect and cooperation and coordination on the topic should be encouraged. Beyond trainings on Interoperable Europe solutions, all initiatives should, where appropriate, build on, or be accompanied by, the sharing of experience and solutions and the exchange and promotion of best practices. In line with their efforts to achieve the targets set in the Digital Decade Policy Programme and in order to have high skilled specialists in this field, the Commission shall ensure the financial support through measures such as: investing in digital education, research and development, through continuous lifelong learning training, supporting digital innovations, providing increased and broader access to easily readable and interoperable high quality industrial and public data, increasing the general availability of digital skills at local and regional level. The Member States and the Commission should pay particular attention to the good understanding of interoperability and the implications for the public sector employees.

Added(29) To create a mechanism facilitating a mutual learning process among public sector bodies and sharing of best practices in implementing Interoperable Europe solutions across the Member States, it is necessary lay down provisions on the peer review process. Peer reviews can lead to valuable insights and recommendations for the public sector body undergoing the review. In particular, they could contribute to facilitating the transfer of technologies, tools, measures and processes among the Member States involved in the peer review. They create a functional path for the sharing of best practices across Member States with different levels of maturity in interoperability. In order to ensure that the peer review process is cost-effective and produces clear and conclusive results, and also to avoid the placement of unnecessary burden, the Commission may adopt guidelines on the best set-up for such peer reviews, based on the needs that occur and after consulting the Interoperable Europe Board.

Added(30) To develop the general direction of the Interoperable Europe structured cooperation in promoting the digital interconnection and interoperability of public services in the Union and to oversee the strategic and implementation activities related to that cooperation, an Interoperable Europe Board should be established. The Interoperable Europe Board should carry out its tasks taking into consideration cross-border interoperability rules and solutions already implemented for existing network and information systems.

Added(31) Certain Union bodies such as the European Data Innovation Board and the European Health Data Space Board have been created and tasked to, among others, enhance interoperability at specific domain or policy level. However, none of the existing bodies is tasked to address cross-border interoperability of network and information systems which are used to provide or manage public services in the Union. The Interoperable Europe Board created by this Regulation should support the Union bodies working on policies, actions and solutions relevant for cross-border interoperability of network and information systems which are used to provide or manage public services in the Union, for example on semantic interoperability for data spaces portability and reusability. The Interoperable Europe Board should interact with all relevant Union bodies and national, regional and local administrations as well as the Free and Open Source community in order to ensure alignment and synergies between cross-border interoperability actions and sector specific ones. To this end the Interoperable Europe Board should involve in its activities representatives of regional and local governments and open source community.

Added(32) Advancing public sector interoperability needs the active involvement and commitment of experts, practitioners, users and the interested public across Member States, across all levels of government, national, regional and local and involving international partners, research and educational institutions and the private sector. In order to tap into their expertise, skills and creativity, a dedicated open forum (the ‘Interoperable Europe Community’) should help channel feedback, user and operational needs, identify areas for further development and help scope priorities for EU interoperability cooperation. The establishment of the Interoperable Europe Community should support the coordination and cooperation between the strategic and operational key players for interoperability.

Added(33) The Interoperable Europe Community should be open to all interested parties. Access to the Interoperable Europe Community should be facilitated and made as easy as possible, avoiding unnecessary barriers and burdens. The Interoperable Europe Community should bring together public and private stakeholders, including citizens, with expertise in the field of cross-border interoperability, coming from different backgrounds, such as academia, research and innovation, education, standardisation and specifications, businesses and public administration at all levels and recipients of public services. The Commission should make the information in relation to the Interoperable Europe Community publicly available to raise awareness of its role.

Added(34) To ensure the rules laid down by this Regulation are efficiently implemented, it is necessary to designate national competent authorities responsible for its implementation. In many Member States, some entities have already the role of developing interoperability. Those entities could take over the role of competent authority in accordance with this Regulation.

Added(35) An Interoperable Europe Agenda should be established as the Union’s main instrument for the coordination of public investments in interoperability solutions and digital infrastructure. It should deliver a comprehensive overview of funding possibilities and funding commitments in the field, integrating where appropriate the related Union programmes. The overview should pay special attention to resources needed for the skilling and upskilling as well as to the additional barriers incurred by areas with limited connectivity, rural areas, peripheral regions and islands, leaving no one behind. This should contribute to creating synergies and coordinating financial support related to interoperability and digital infrastructure development and avoiding duplication. The Interoperable Europe Agenda should also set clear objectives and introduce key performance indicators for measuring their achievement. The Agenda should, where appropriate, also include indicators on the use of open source solutionsamong public administrations, in order to measure its uptake.

Added(35a) The Interoperable Europe Agenda should be in line with the principles of the Digital Europe Programme, the central programme for digital in the MFF. Its purpose is to accelerate economic recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe. It is designed to fill the gap between research and deployment of digital technologies, bringing the results of research to the market for the benefit of citizens and businesses, in particular SMEs.

Added(35b) Since the objective of this Regulation is to promote the cross-border interoperability of network and information systems which are used to provide or manage public services in the Union, the Union should strengthen investments in a range of areas, including supercomputing and data processing capacities, core artificial intelligence (AI) capacities such as data spaces and libraries of AI algorithms, cybersecurity, digital skills, expanding the best use of digital capacity in the Union’s society and economy, and support to the digitalisation of businesses and public administrations.

Added(35c) Supporting digital transformation is key to building resilience and advancing recovery. In order to asses the performance of this Regulation, the Union should put forward investments and funding for research and high-end innovation in enabling technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotic, next generation Internet, high performance computing, big data, key digital technologies, 6G and to supports trans-European networks and infrastructures in telecommunications in order to build infrastructure that can handle emerging and future processes and applications.

Added(36) Information should be collected in order to assess the performance of this Regulation against the objectives it pursues, and in order give feedback for an evaluation of this Regulation in accordance with paragraph 22 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making. Therefore, the Commission should carry out a monitoring and evaluation of this Regulation. The evaluation should be based on the five criteria of efficiency, effectiveness, relevance, coherence and EU value added. The evaluation should also be the basis for impact assessments of possible further measures. The monitoring should integrate existing data sources and monitoring processes.

Added(37) In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission to set out rules and the conditions for the establishment and the operation of the innovation sandboxes.

Added(38) Since the objective of this Regulation, namely interoperability within public administrations on a Union-wide scale, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, but can rather, by reason of its scale and effects, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in the same Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve the objectives of the Treaties, especially with regards to the strengthening of the Single Market.

Added(39) The application of this Regulation should be deferred to twelve months after the date of its entry into force in order to provide Member States and the institutions, bodies and agencies of the Union with sufficient time to prepare for the application of this Regulation. Such time is necessary to establish the Interoperable Europe Board and the Interoperable Europe Community and for the designation of national competent authorities and interoperability coordinators.

Added(40) The European Data Protection Supervisor was consulted in accordance with Article 42(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council and delivered an opinion on…,