EN    EN EN 
EN    EN  EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
Brussels, 21.2.2011 
SEC(2011) 206 final 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER 
Background information related to the st rategy for expanding and developing the 
Internal Market Information System ( ‛IMI’) 
  
Accompanying document to the Communica tion on better governance of the Single 
Market through greater admi nistrative cooperation: 
  
A strategy for expanding and developing th e Internal Market Information System 
(‛IMI’) 
 
Text with EEA relevance 
  
(COM(2011) 75 final)  
EN 2   EN INTRODUCTION 
This Commission staff working document c ontains background information relevant 
to the Commission Communication "Better governance of the Si ngle Market through 
greater administrative c ooperation – A strategy for expansion and further 
development of the Internal Market Information System (IMI)". 
SECTION  I – HOW IMI  WORKS  
IMI has been designed as a re usable tool which can be easily customised to support 
new legislative areas. In order to reuse th e IMI information exchange workflow for a 
new legislative area, the only effort require d is to import a new set of translated 
question and answer pairs (der ived from the relevant legi slative provisions) into the 
IMI database and to ensure that any compet ent authorities who wish to exchange this 
information are registered in IMI and ha ve access to the new legislative area. 
Competent authorities need only register  once in the IMI database and may be 
granted access to multiple legislative areas, depending on their sphere of competence. Registration in IMI is open to na tional, regional and local authorities in 
the EU, Iceland, Liechte nstein and Norway who deal w ith the specific legislation it 
supports. 
LANGUAGE
SUPPORT
Information
exchange forCOMPETENT AUTHORITIES AND NATIONAL EXPERTS
QUESTION SET GENERATOR
Information
exchange forCACA
DATADATACA
DATA
QUESTIONS
Information
exchange forCA
DATA
SERVICESPROFESSIONAL
QUALIFICATIONS
QUESTIONS..............CA
DATA
QUESTIONS
Information
exchange forCA
DATA
QUESTIONSPOSTING OF
WORKERS
 
IMI helps its users to:  
• find the right authority to c ontact in another country;  
• communicate with them using pre-translat ed sets of standard questions and 
answers;  
• follow the progress of the information request through a tracking mechanism. 
Because Member States have been closely involved in devising the system, IMI 
offers uniform working methods agreed by every EU country.  
For more information on IMI, please see the IMI website: 
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/imi-net/index.html  
EN 3   EN The screenshots below illust rate how a Polish competent authority that needs 
information about a British pharmacist can se nd a request in Polish to its counterpart 
in the UK. The UK authority can view a nd reply to the questions in English. 
Screenshot 1- Polish authority’s view of the request 
 
Screenshot 2- U.K authority’s view of the same request  

EN 4   EN SECTION  II - FINANCIAL EXPENDITURE  
A. Overall expenditure on IMI to date  
Table (A) below provides an overview of total expenditure on IMI to date and 
estimated expenditure  for the period 2011-2012. 
Table A 
  2006-2009 
(actual €) 2010 
(actual €) 2011 
planned 2012 
planned Total (€) 
(1) Development 2 195 000 950 000 650,000 650,000 4 445 000
(2) Maintenance & 
support services  -- 400 000 350 000 350 000  1 100 000
(3) Hosting  118 000 237 000 237 000 237 000  829 000
(4) Training & 
promotion  200 000 100 000 200 000 200 000  700 000
Total 2 513 000 1 687 000 1 437 000 1 437 000  7 074 000
 
B. Financial advantages of a reusable IT system  
The original concept of IMI as a reusable tool which could be easily customised to 
support new legislative areas has been succe ssfully proven with the expansion from a 
single module covering the Pr ofessional Qualifications ar ea to three current modules 
(Professional Qualifications, Se rvices, Posting of Workers1). 
While examining the feasibility of using a specific module of the IMI system to be 
used in the area of posting of workers in  order to further enhance administrative 
cooperation foreseen under Di rective 96/71/EC (concerning the posting of workers in 
the framework of the provision of services),  an analysis of the expected costs and 
benefits carried out showed that no furt her technical developm ent was required and 
therefore no development cost would be incu rred. A separate and specific application 
for Posting of Workers has been created in IMI without any IT cost and will be used 
as a pilot following the a doption of Council Conclusi ons (foreseen for EPSSCO 
Council in March 2011).  
                                                 
1 The decision to begin the Posting of Workers pilot is awaiting adoption of Council conclusions 
(foreseen for EPSSCO Council in March 2011). 
EN 5   EN It is possible to appreciate the potential savings offered by a reusable system, by 
comparing the cost of developing an elec tronic information exchange tool from 
scratch versus adapting or reusing an existing tool.  
Table (B) below shows:-  
• the actual cost of developing the first (information exchange) workflow from 
scratch, including common sy stem features (row 1); 
• the incremental cost of reusing this information exchange workflow in a separate 
and specific application to support the Posting of Workers directive (row 2); 
• the cost of adapting IMI to develop a second (alert) workflow, reusing the existing 
common system features (row 3). 
Please note that Table B deals with the porti on of total development cost associated 
with the initial development of the two IMI workflows. Subsequent development of 
IMI has taken place in response to user re quests for improvement and in 2010 a new 
searchable database of registers was deve loped. These additional costs (included in 
Table A) are excluded from Table B below. 
Table B 
IMI feature Cost to develop 
(1) Cost of developing first IMI workflow 
• Common features (competent authority database, multilingual 
support, registration of authoritie s and users, user management, 
authentication)  
• First workflow (one-to-one information exchange, used for 
both Professional Qualifications  and Services directives) €1 417  000
(2) Incremental cost of re-using the existing information exchange 
workflow  (and common features of  IMI) to support the 
administrative cooperation requireme nts of the Posting of Workers 
Directive €0
(3) Incremental cost of developing a new workflow  to support the 
alert mechanism foreseen in the Services Directive, reusing the 
existing common features of IMI  
• Second workflow(one-to-many alert ) €973  500
The cost of development is just one aspect of the total co st of an IT system. Annual 
costs for hosting, maintenance, second-line s upport and training as shown in rows 2-
4 of Table (A) above should also be factor ed in. Re-using an existing IT system 
generates synergies as these costs are not  incurred many times over for separate 
systems. 
EN 6   EN SECTION  III – ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS FOR FURTHER DEVELOPING IMI 
Building block Function Elements already in 
IMI  
Authentication 
 Verifies whether someone who tries to 
access the system is an authorised user Internal user name, 
password and digital code 
Competent authority management and authorisation Enables the authorising actor to give others 
access to the system and to define their user profile (rights to act within the system)  
 Self-registration 
module (by invitation) 
Multilingual user interface Enables the user to work in their language of 
choice 23-language interface 
and machine translation
2 
 
Information Exchange 
workflows  A pre-structured seque nce of interactions 
between authorities in  the system (content 
may be questions/answers, structured forms, free text, attached files, etc.) 
• Information request 
• Alert 
• Notification Information request 
Alert  
Interface with 
external systems 
 Enables uploading, sending, storing, 
receiving and downloadi ng of pre-structured 
information sets (transfer of information to/from external systems) None 
Information 
repository Structured storage capacity for data 
exchanged or uploaded within the system  Competent authorities 
database 
Registers database 
Search  Capacity to find specific information within 
any data or within defi ned categories of data 
within a database  Various searches 
Further improvement 
needed 
                                                 
2 Following the judgment of the General Court of the European Union in case number T-19/07 on 16 
December 2010, the use of ECMT has been suspended 
EN 7   EN  
Report and statistics Generates stru ctured reports and statistics on 
activities and data within the application External, Business 
Objects 
Webform for external supply and retrieval of data  Technical means
3, which can be used by 
existing networks for administrative cooperation to allow citi zens, enterprises and 
organisations to interact with the competent authorities in order to supply information and retrieve data  Not available yet 
                                                 
3 Such a means of interaction will avoid duplication with existing e-Government portals such as the 
Points of Single Contact of the Services Directiv e (PSCs) and e-Government projects such as SPOCS 
(Simple Procedures Online for Cros s-border Services) and PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement 
Online), instead seeking to reuse existing to ols and establish synergies where possible. 
EN 8   EN SECTION  IV - INDICATIVE LIST OF POTENTIAL AR EAS THAT COULD BENEFIT FROM IMI 
(as identified and (partially) examined by the Commission services and Member States in 2010) 
TOPIC Related texts and initiatives 
Internal Market  
Gambling • No specific legal instrument on gambling 
• Council Conclusions 10 December 2010 mentioning IMI 
• Public consultation on on-line gambling to be launched in the 
first quarter of 2011 
e-Commerce • Ongoing evaluation of 2000/31/EC 
• Article 3.4 on the notificati on procedure and Article 19 on 
cooperation between contact points 
• Public consultation completed on 5 November 2010 
• Communication planned for first semester in 2011 
Intellectual property 
rights • Directive 2004/48/EC requi res designation of national 
correspondents 
• 2008 Communication and Council conclusions: mentions setting 
up a network for exchanging information  
Professional 
qualifications • European professional card, alert system for health professions 
• To be examined as part of the review of the Professional 
Qualifications Directive 
Services • Notification procedure (Artic les 15.7 and 39.5 of Services 
Directive 2006/123/EC) 
e-Procurement • Public procurement packa ge: Directives 2004/18/EC and 
2004/17/EC 
• e-CERTIS database to help companies and contracting 
organisations cope with the documentation demands 
encountered when tendering for public contracts in the EU 
Postal Services • Directive 2008/6/EC on internal market of postal services  
• Article 22 on collaboration and mutual assistance of national 
regulatory authorities  
Business registers • Forthcoming proposal for a directive on creating links between 
company registers  
Auditing • Directive 2006/43/EC on Statutory Audit. Article 33 on 
cooperation between public oversight systems  
• Green Paper on audit policy (October 2010) deals with closer 
cooperation between ‘ the national audit oversight systems’  and 
mentions the idea of a European pass for auditors 
Assets Management 
 • UCITS: Directive 2009/65/EC. Article 34  concerns the need to 
set up a central system to store a database of all UCITS and 
related information, including the documentation referred to in 
Article 93(3) of Directive 2009/65/EC  
• AIFM: Proposal for a Directive on Alternative Investment Fund 
Managers currently in discussi ons. Chapter VIII, Section 2 
concerns cooperation between Competent Authorities 
Insurance and 
pensions • Revision of 2002/92/EC on insurance mediation  
• Article 9 on exchanging information between Member States  
• Ongoing public consultation until end of January 2011  
Employment and 
Social Affairs  
Posting of workers • A separate and specific applicat ion of IMI to be used as a pilot 
following the adoption of Council Conclusions (foreseen for 
EN 9   EN TOPIC Related texts and initiatives 
EPSSCO Council in March 2011) 
Coordination of social 
security systems  • Regulation (EC) 883/2004 and its Implementing Regulation (EC) 
987/2009 
• Potential synergies with IMI 
 
Enterprise and 
Industry  
Marketing of products • Regulation (EC) 765/2008 setting out the requirements for 
accreditation and market surveilla nce relating to the marketing 
of products   
• Article 23 on a general archiving and exchange of information 
system, using electronic means 
 
Free movement of 
goods 
 
Product Contact 
Points • Regulation  (EC) No 764/2008 laying down procedures relating 
to the application of certain national technical rules to products lawfully marketed in another Member State  
• Article 11: The Commission may establish a  Telematic Network  
for the exchange of information between Product Contact Points and/or the competent authoriti es of the Member States 
Approval of vehicles • Directives on approval of motor vehicles (2007/46/EC), tractors 
(2003/37/EC) and three-wheel motor vehicles (2002/24/EC)  
• Article 12 (2007/46/EC), Article 13 (2003/37/EC) and Article 4 
(2002/24/EC) mention cooperatio n between approval authorities 
Marketing of 
construction products • Proposal for a regulation on harmonised conditions for the 
marketing of construction products (repealing Directive 89/106/EEC)  
• Chapter VII on notification author ities, including provisions on 
exchanging experience between authorities (Article 44) and 
coordination of notified bodies (Article 45) 
Economic Affairs  
Cross-border cash in transit • Draft regulation on cross-border transportation of euro cash 
presented in July 2010 
• Article 11 on mutual information and National Contact Points 
• Articles 20, 22, 23 (notification, alerts) 
 
Justice  
Public documents 
and Civil status documents • Green paper – Less bureaucracy for citizens: promoting free 
movement of public documents an d recognition of the effects of 
civil status records  was adopted on 14/12/2010  
Contract Law • Cooperation between judicial aut horities in the context of a 
possible future instrument on European contract law 
 
Transport   
EN 10   EN Passenger rights • Regulations EU 261/2004, EU 1107/2006, EU 1370/2007, EU 
1177/2010 and future Regulation on passenger rights for transport by sea and inland waterways; draft Regulation on 
Rights of Passengers in bus and coach transport.  
• Article 31 of 1371/2007/EC about cooperation between National 
Enforcement Bodies  (for the purposes of the passenger rights 
regulations, it would be necessary to include opening of 
registration in IMI to Switzerland and other European third countries which apply EU Law through bilateral agreements) 
 
Vehicle procurement  • Directive 2009/33/EC of the European Parliament and of the 
Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport vehicles. 
• The Directive requires that ener gy and environmental impacts 
linked to the operation of vehicles  over their whole lifetime are 
taken into account in purchase decisions. 
 
Maritime transport 
policy: ports and 
inland waterways • New directive which obliges MS to have a single information 
point for maritime issues (Single Window). The most likely 
platform to exchange data between ports and authorities is 
SafeSeaNet, but there may be pot ential synergies between this 
system and IMI 
Health  
Patients rights  • Proposal for a directive on pati ents' rights in cross-border 
healthcare  
• Article 6.2 about cooperation between National Contact Points 
for cross-border healthcare; Arti cle 10(1) about the exchange of 
information between MS on standards and guidelines on quality 
and safety and supervision; Article 10 (2) (b) about the 
exchange of information on the right to practice of health 
professionals 
Medicinal products • Proposal for a directive on falsified medicinal products currently 
discussed in first reading  
Media  
Audiovisual & Media services  
(AVMSD)  • Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS): 2010/13/EU 
• Article 30 on cooperation and exchange of information between 
regulators  
Education   
Europass • Europass Decision 2241/2004/EC  
Energy  
Energy Efficiency and 
Intelligent Energy • Labelling Directives  
• Energy Star Regulation 
• Ecodesign Directive: exchange of information on product testing 
results between energy performance auditors  
EN 11   EN SECTION  V: IT TOOLS FOR ADMINISTRATIVE COOPERATION (NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST ) 
IT Tool EU policy 
area Short description Operational 
since Multilingual Exchange 
volume No of 
registered public authorities 
CIRCABC All policy 
areas CIRCABC (‘Communication and Information Resource 
Centre for Administrations, Businesses and Citizens’) is used to create collaborative workspaces where communities of users can work together over the web and share information and resources. It is intended to replace CIRCA (Communication and Information 
Resource Centre for Administrations), an e-
government solution supporting the online collaborative activities of the European Union’s public administrations. Since 1997, CIRCA has operated as an IDA(BC) service and has been used by more than 30 Directorates-General, in particular by the committees and consultative bodies established to support collaboration between the Member States and the EU institutions. More than 100 national 
administrations have received a free licence and use it 
for their own needs. The CIRCABC groupware enhances the performance of CIRCA in terms of capacity, security, availability and interoperability. Its user interface will be available in 23 languages. 2007 Yes     
CPCS: 
Consumer Protection Cooperation System Consumer 
protection The aim is to enable information exchange between 
national authorities and serve as an information repository to improve EU cooperation in the field of consumer protection enforcement. National enforcement authorities are able to exchange information and cooperate with counterparts in other Member States working together to stop rogue traders or any other cross-border breach of consumer protection laws. It tackles breaches in a variety of 
areas such as misleading advertising, package 
holidays, timeshares and distance selling. CPCS is used as the IT tool to support the ECC-NET network of European consumer centres. 2006 Interfaces 
yes. Translation of information exchanged is the responsibility of the MS 1500 over 
last 4 years 3000 
EESSI 
(Electronic 
Exchange of Social Security Information) Social 
Affairs The EESSI system will suppor t information exchanges 
that take place between the social security institutions 
of the Member States to implement EU social security coordination rules. The objective is to ensure that all the information exchanges currently taking place through the use of paper E (European) forms will be undertaken by electronic means. Directory 
services 
operational since 2010, system for exchanging info will be fully operational in May 2012  The 
structured 
electronic messages exchanged in the system are translated in 22 official languages of 
the EU but 
the translation of information exchanges and software interfaces is the 
responsibility 
of the MS. No data 
available yet 10, 000 - 
16
 000 
EN 12   EN IT Tool EU policy 
area Short description Operational 
since Multilingual Exchange 
volume No of 
registered public authorities 
 
ERRU Transport ERRU stands for European Registers of Road 
Transport Undertakings. The system interconnects 
national electronic registers for road transport undertakings in order to enable Member States to exchange information on infringements and about transport managers in a fully automated mode. The exchange of information is based on Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 establishing common rules concerning the conditions to be complied with to pursue the 
occupation of road transport operator, Regulation (EC) 
No 1072/2009 on common rules for access to the international road haulage market and Regulation (EC) No 1073/2009 on common rules for access to the international market for coach and bus services. will be 
operational 
in early 2013 Almost all 
content of 
the messages is predefined and therefore multilingual  Competent 
Authorities of 
EU and EFTA countries (one contact point per country) 
EUCARIS 
(Not 
managed by Commission) 
 Transport EUCARIS stands for EUropean CAR and driving 
licence Information Syst em. The system has been 
developed by and for national authorities and is operated by a national organisation (RDW). With EUCARIS countries can connect their registries and communicate directly.  In 2008 the EUCARIS application was introduced by Council Decisions 2008/615/JHA and 2008/616/JHA (formerly known as the Prüm Treaty) for combating crime and is supposed 
to connect all EU MS by mid 2011. Currently several 
Member States are involved in EUCARIS for the exchange of information on vehicle registration (11 Member States) and on driving licences (7 Member States). The exchange is based on different legal frameworks. partly 
operational 
in 7 countries  ( supposed to be fully operational in 2011)      
EUDAMED Health  Eudamed is a secure web-based portal acting as a 
central repository for information exchange between national competent authorities and the Commission. It is not publicly accessible. Eudamed is currently being used by a number of Member States on a voluntary basis and will be obligatory as from May 2011. The aim of Eudamed is to strengthen market surveillance and transparency in the field of medical devices by 
providing Member State competent authorities with 
fast access to information on manufacturers and authorised representatives, on devices and certificates and on vigilance and clinical investigation data. It also contributes to a uniform application of the Directives, in particular for registration requirements. 2004 No, just EN Approx. 1 
Million medical advice messages are being exchanged Approx. 30 
EN 13   EN IT Tool EU policy 
area Short description Operational 
since Multilingual Exchange 
volume No of 
registered public authorities 
European Computerised System for Exchanging Information on Criminal 
Convictions 
(ECRIS) Justice ECRIS is a decentralised information technology 
system based on criminal record databases in Member States. It consists of an interconnection software that allows exchanges of information between national databases and a common communication infrastructure, which will initially be the 
Trans-European Services for Telematics between 
Administrations (S-TESTA) network. 2012  Yes  100
 000 
messages per month estimated  Not known 
yet 
IMI  Internal 
Market  IMI is a single informati on system designed to support 
administrative cooperation obligations under various 
Directives in the field of the internal market. Currently 
it is being used to support the Professional Qualifications Directive (2005/36/EC) and the Services Directive (2006/123/EC) and in 2011 a pilot project to support the Posting of Workers Directive (1996/71/EC) is due to begin (still to be confirmed). February 
2008 Yes 1404 in 2009 5700 public 
authorities, 
10
 000 users  
RAPEX Health 
and Consumer protection RAPEX is the EU rapid alert system for all dangerous 
consumer products, with the exception of food, pharmaceutical and medical devices. It allows Member States via central contact points and the Commission to rapidly exchange information on measures taken to prevent or restrict the marketing or use of products posing a serious risk to the health and safety of consumers in accordance with article 22 of 
Regulation 765/2008. Current 
version since 2004 No 
Notifications are only being translated into EN. Interfaces will be 
multilingual 
in Spring 2011 1993 in 2009 not known 
RASFF Health 
and Consumer 
protection The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) 
was put in place to provide food and feed control authorities with an effective tool to exchange 
information on measures taken responding to serious 
risks detected in relation to food or feed. This exchange of information helps Member States act more rapidly and in a coordinated manner in response to a health threat caused by food or feed. Since 1979 No, 
information is only 
translated 
into EN. Interfaces will become multi-lingual in 2011. 8000 for 
2009 109 
RESPER Transport RESPER interconnects natio nal electronic registers 
for Driving licences in order to enable the Member States Driving Licence issuing authorities an automatic exchange of information in accordance with Directive 126/2006/EC. 
 Will be 
operational as of 19 Jan 2013 Standardise
d question sets are available in all languages, free text is not 
necessary   30 Mio 
messages  per anno   Likely that it 
will include CAs outside the EU and EFTA 
SOLVIT Internal 
Market  SOLVIT is an on-line problem solving network in 
which EU Member States work together to solve without legal proceedings problems caused by the 
misapplication of Internal Market law by public 
authorities. July 2002 Yes 1540 
SOLVIT cases were 
submitted in 
2009 One Solvit 
centre per EEA state 
(30) 
EN 14   EN IT Tool EU policy 
area Short description Operational 
since Multilingual Exchange 
volume No of 
registered public authorities 
Tachonet Transport Tachonet interconnects national electronic registers 
for Driver-cards for the Digital Tachograph  in order to enable Member States Driver card issuing authorities an automatic exchange of information as stated in Regulation (EEC) n°3821/85 2005 Standardise
d question sets are available in all languages, 
free text is 
not necessary 7 Mio 
messages between Jan - Nov 2010 Currently 33 
countries (EU Member States and AETR countries); 
50 
participating States when all AETR countries are connected  
TRACES Health 
and Consumer protection TRACES is an internet-based network between 
veterinary authorities in EU countries and business operators. The system makes it possible to produce and exchange information on all animal health and welfare and public health certificates accompanying animals, semen, embryos and products of animal origin. It speeds up administrative procedures - business operators can make requests online, for 
imports as well as trade within the EU. 2004 Interfaces 
yes. Documents are already available in all languages before they 
are uploaded 
to the system. 1300 in 
October 2010 1000 
TRIS Enterprise 
and Industry In the field of products and information society 
services, Directive 98/34/EC obliges Member States to notify to the Commission and to other Member 
States their technical regulations (rules on information 
society services) at a draft stage. TRIS contains a database of notifications which can be searched by country, number, date, keyword, etc. 1990 Draft text is 
translated into all 
languages if 
document is less than 30 pages 3099 in 2009 31