On 18 November 2022 the European Commission adopted a proposal for an Interoperable Europe Act to reinforce the interoperability of the public sector in the EU. It aims to enhance the ability of administrations to cooperate and make public services function across borders, sectors and organizations.
With the accompanying Communication, the Commission draws a clear link of this topic to digital-ready policymaking. Indicatively from the Interoperable Europe Act Communication:
“While the Commission has committed itself to digital-ready policymaking and will ensure its application to policy initiatives and legislative proposals, this is only the start. To make EU legislation fully digital-ready and interoperable-by-design, it is important to seek, and eventually ensure, a shared understanding between the co-legislators, in full respect of the roles of each Institution. The common EU interoperability governance under the proposed Interoperable Europe Act is an essential instrument for helping this shared understanding emerge.”
The Interoperable Europe Act proposal itself contains several important elements relevant for our community:
- An Interoperable Europe Governance for structured cooperation, co-owned by the Member States and the European Commission, in an ever-evolving technology and policy context; including an interoperability community that will contribute to the activities of the Interoperable Europe Board by providing expertise and advice. Our community could become part of this broader interoperability community to channel interoperability and public sector innovation into policymaking.
- Mandatory interoperability assessments to be performed before binding legal, organisational, semantic or technical requirements for IT systems are set. Running such an interoperability assessment already in the policy design phase could result in smooth policy implementation thus ensure digital-ready policymaking.
- Innovation and joint experimentation, including the private sector, notably with common GovTech innovation projects and regulatory sandboxes. Our community’s interest in law as code and the use of emerging technologies could feed this innovative work strand.
- An Interoperable Europe Portal with shared and reusable solutions to reinforce public administrations when building interoperable services. The Joinup platform will ensure that new collaboration features are available to support the knowledge exchange and interactive work also for our community.
- Policy implementation support projects are relevant to our community as well, as they intend to facilitate the digital implementation of Union policies ensuring the cross-border interoperability of implied IT systems.
- Continuous training on interoperability, where the constantly evolving learning hub of our community can be a valued asset.
Interested to learn more
We invite you to stay tuned on our first 2023 BLSI webinar about “The Interoperable Europe proposal: Implications and opportunities for our community” taking place on 7 February 2023. Do not miss out the opportunity to register here by 03/02/2022.
Do not hesitate to share any ideas and content in comments or in discussions directly on our Joinup space. You can find a video tutorial here.
If not already done, subscribe to our newsletter to stay tuned on what is coming and become a member of our community!
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Additional documentation from the European Commission:
- Recommendations from the Expert Group on the Interoperability of European Public Services
- The Impact assessment report
- The European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities (EIF4SCC)
- The Evaluation of the EIF