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In recent decades, European public administrations have invested in ICT to modernise their internal operations, reduce costs and improve the services they offer to citizens and businesses. Despite the significant progress made and benefits obtained already, administrations still face considerable barriers to exchanging information and collaborating electronically. These include legislative barriers, incompatible business processes and information models, and the diversity of technologies used. This is because, historically, information systems were set up in the public sector independently of each other and not in a coordinated way. The diversity of institutional configurations across Europe adds another layer of complexity at EU level.
Interoperability is a prerequisite for enabling electronic communication and exchange of information between public administrations. This makes it also a prerequisite for achieving a digital single market. Interoperability programmes in the EU have evolved over time. At first, they were concerned with achieving interoperability in particular domains, then with putting in place common infrastructure. More recently, they have started to address interoperability at the semantic level. Governance, compatibility of legal regimes, alignment of business processes and secure access to data sources are some of the issues to be addressed next, to provide fully fledged public services.
The EIF promotes electronic communication among European public administrations by providing a set of common models, principles and recommendations. It acknowledges and stresses the fact that interoperability is not only an ICT matter, as it has layers of implications ranging from the legal to the technical. Addressing issues in a holistic approach in all these layers and at different administrative levels from local to EU remains a challenge. The EIF identifies four layers of interoperability challenges (legal, organisational, semantic and technical) at the same time pointing out the essential role of governance to ensure coordination of relevant activities across all levels and sectors of administration.
The EIF conceptual model for public services covers the design, planning, development, operation and maintenance of integrated public services at all governmental levels from local to EU level. The principles set out here guide decision-making on establishing interoperable European public services. Moreover, the EIF offers practical tools in the form of a set of actionable recommendations.
The components of the EIF are depicted in Figure 5.
The revised EIF is a key instrument for establishing interoperable digital public services at regional, national and EU level, thereby contributing to making the digital single market a reality.