The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) has 12 principles, 6 layers, 1 conceptual model (with 7 components) and 47 recommendations. There are 19 recommendations associated with the principles, 14 with the layers and 14 with the conceptual model.
Each of the recommendations in the EULF Blueprint includes references to the related EIF recommendations.
The table below summarises the relationships from the perspective of the EIF. For each of the following parts of the EIF, it highlights the related EULF Blueprint recommendations.
Principles
| EIF Underlying Principle | EIF Recommendation | EULF Blueprint Recommendations |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Subsidiarity and proportionality | 1. Ensure that national interoperability frameworks and interoperability strategies are aligned with the EIF and, if needed, tailor and extend them to address the national context and needs. | |
| 2. Openness | 2. Publish the data you own as open data unless certain restrictions apply. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (2); Return on Investment (16) |
| 3. Ensure a level playing field for open source software and demonstrate active and fair consideration of using open source software, taking into account the total cost of ownership of the solutions. | ||
| 4. Give preference to open specifications, taking due account of the coverage of functional needs, maturity and market support and innovation. | Standardisation and Reuse (12) | |
| 3. Transparency | 5. Ensure internal visibility and provide external interfaces for European public services. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (2, 3) |
| 4. Reusability | 6. Reuse and share solutions and cooperate in the development of joint solutions when implementing European public service. | Digital Government Integration (8); Standardisation and Reuse (11); Governance, Partnerships and Capabilities (19) |
| 7. Reuse and share information and data when implementing European public services, unless certain privacy or confidentiality restrictions apply. | Standardisation and Reuse (11) | |
| 5. Technological neutrality and data portability | 8. Do not impose any technological solutions on citizens, businesses and other administrations that are technology-specific or disproportionate to their real needs. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (5); Standardisation and Reuse (10, 12) |
| 9. Ensure data portability, namely that data is easily transferable between systems and applications supporting the implementation and evolution of European public services without unjustified restrictions, if legally possible. | Digital Government Integration (7) | |
| 6. User centricity | 10. Use multiple channels to provide the European public service, to ensure that users can select the channel that best suits their needs. | |
| 11. Provide a single point of contact in order to hide internal administrative complexity and facilitate users' access to European public services. | Digital Government Integration (8, 9); Standardisation and Reuse (11); Return on Investment (16) | |
| 12. Put in place mechanisms to involve users in analysis, design, assessment and further development of European public services. | Digital Government Integration (8); Governance, Partnerships and Capabilities (17, 18) | |
| 13. As far as possible under the legislation in force, ask users of European public services once-only and relevant-only information. | Digital Government Integration (6, 8) | |
| 7. Inclusion and accessibility | 14. Ensure that all European public services are accessible to all citizens, including persons with disabilities, the elderly and other disadvantaged groups. For digital public services, public administrations should comply with e-accessibility specifications that are widely recognised at European or international level. | |
| 8. Security and privacy | 15. Define a common security and privacy framework and establish processes for public services to ensure secure and trustworthy data exchange between public administrations and in interactions with citizens and businesses. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (3) |
| 9. Multilingualism | 16. Use information systems and technical architectures that cater for multilingualism when Establishing a European public service. Decide on the level of multilingualism support based on the needs of the expected users. | Standardisation and Reuse (13) |
| 10. Administrative simplification | 17. Simplify processes and use digital channels whenever appropriate for the delivery of European public services, to respond promptly and with high quality to users' requests and reduce the administrative burden on public administrations, businesses and citizens. | Digital Government Integration (6) |
| 11. Preservation of information | 18. Formulate a long-term preservation policy for information related to European public services and especially for information that is exchanged across borders. | |
| 12. Assessment of effectiveness and efficiency | 19. Evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of different interoperability solutions and technological options considering user needs, proportionality and balance between costs and benefits. | Return on Investment (14, 15) |
Interoperability Layers
| EIF Interoperability Layers | EIF Recommendation | EULF Blueprint Recommendations |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Interoperability governance | 20. Ensure holistic governance of interoperability activities across administrative levels and sectors. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (1, 2); Digital Government Integration (7); Governance, Partnerships and Capabilities (17) |
| 21. Put in place processes to select relevant standards and specifications, evaluate them, monitor their implementation, check compliance and test their interoperability. | Standardisation and Reuse (12) | |
| 22. Use a structured, transparent, objective and common approach to assessing and selecting standards and specifications. Take into account relevant EU recommendations and seek to make the approach consistent across borders. | Standardisation and Reuse (12) | |
| 23. Consult relevant catalogues of standards, specifications and guidelines at national and EU level, in accordance with your NIF and relevant DIFs, when procuring and developing ICT solutions. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (5); Standardisation and Reuse (12) | |
| 24. Actively participate in standardisation work relevant to your needs to ensure your requirements are met. | Standardisation and Reuse (12) | |
| 2. Integrated public service governance | 25. Ensure interoperability and coordination over time when operating and delivering integrated public services by putting in place the necessary governance structure. | Governance, Partnerships and Capabilities (17) |
| 26. Establish interoperability agreements in all layers, complemented by operational agreements and change management procedures. | Governance, Partnerships and Capabilities (18) | |
| 3. Legal interoperability | 27. Ensure that legislation is screened by means of ‘interoperability checks’, to identify any barriers to interoperability. When drafting legislation to establish a European public service, seek to make it consistent with relevant legislation, perform a ‘digital check’ and consider data protection requirements. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (1) |
| 4. Organisational interoperability | 28. Document your business processes using commonly accepted modelling techniques and agree on how these processes should be aligned to deliver a European public service. | Digital Government Integration (6); Standardisation and Reuse (12) |
| 29. Clarify and formalise your organisational relationships for establishing and operating European public services. | Governance, Partnerships and Capabilities (18) | |
| 5. Semantic interoperability | 30. Perceive data and information as a public asset that should be appropriately generated, collected, managed, shared, protected and preserved. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (4) |
| 31. Put in place an information management strategy at the highest possible level to avoid fragmentation and duplication. Management of metadata, master data and reference data should be prioritised. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (1); Digital Government Integration (7); Standardisation and Reuse (13) | |
| 32. Support the establishment of sector-specific and cross-sectoral communities that aim to create open information specifications and encourage relevant communities to share their results on national and European platforms. | Standardisation and Reuse (12); Governance, Partnerships and Capabilities (18) | |
| 6. Technical interoperability | 33. Use open specifications, where available, to ensure technical interoperability when establishing European public services. | Standardisation and Reuse (10, 12) |
Conceptual Model for Integrated Public Services
| EIF Conceptual Model Components | EIF Recommendation | EULF Blueprint Recommendations |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Model | 34. Use the conceptual model for European public services to design new services or reengineer existing ones and reuse, whenever possible, existing service and data components. | |
| 35. Decide on a common scheme for interconnecting loosely coupled service components and put in place and maintain the necessary infrastructure for establishing and maintaining European public services. | Standardisation and Reuse (10) | |
| 2. Internal information sources and services | 36. Develop a shared infrastructure of reusable services and information sources that can be used by all public administrations. | Standardisation and Reuse (10, 11) |
| 3. Base registries | 37. Make authoritative sources of information available to others while implementing access and control mechanisms to ensure security and privacy in accordance with the relevant legislation. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (3, 4); Digital Government Integration (9); Standardisation and Reuse (13); Return on Investment (16) |
| 38. Develop interfaces with base registries and authoritative sources of information, publish the semantic and technical means and documentation needed for others to connect and reuse available information. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (3, 4); Digital Government Integration (9); Standardisation and Reuse (13); Return on Investment (16) | |
| 39. Match each base registry with appropriate metadata including the description of its content, service assurance and responsibilities, the type of master data it keeps, conditions of access and the relevant licences, terminology, a glossary, and information about any master data it uses from other base registries. | ||
| 40. Create and follow data quality assurance plans for base registries and related master data. | Standardisation and Reuse (12) | |
| 4. Open data | 41. Establish procedures and processes to integrate the opening of data in your common business processes, working routines, and in the development of new information systems. | Return on Investment (16) |
| 42. Publish open data in machine-readable, non-proprietary formats. Ensure that open data is accompanied by high quality, machine-readable metadata in non-proprietary formats, including a description of their content, the way data is collected and its level of quality and the licence terms under which it is made available. The use of common vocabularies for expressing metadata is recommended. | Standardisation and Reuse (13) | |
| 43. Communicate clearly the right to access and reuse open data. The legal regimes for facilitating access and reuse, such as licences, should be standardised as much as possible. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (2) | |
| 5. Catalogues | 44. Put in place catalogues of public services, public data, and interoperability solutions and use common models for describing them. | Digital Government Integration (7); Standardisation and Reuse (11) |
| 6. External information sources and services | 45. Where useful and feasible to do so, use external information sources and services while developing European public services. | Digital Government Integration (8) |
| 7. Security and privacy | 46. Consider the specific security and privacy requirements and identify measures for the provision of each public service according to risk management plans. | Policy and Strategy Alignment (3) |
| 47. Use trust services according to the Regulation on eID and Trust Services as mechanisms that ensure secure and protected data exchange in public services. |