Table of contents 1.Introduction 1.1.Purpose and scope 2.Background to the intervention 2.1.Description of the intervention and its objectives 2.2.Baseline and points of comparison 3.Implementation / state of Play 3.1.Description of the current situation 3.2.How has the implementation and application of INSPIRE evolved from 2014 to 2020 and how it has affected different stakeholders? 3.3.To what extent have the recommendations from the 2016 INSPIRE REFIT evaluation been implemented? 3.3.1.Follow-Up on 2016 REFIT evaluation recommendations by the Commission 3.3.2.Follow-Up on 2016 REFIT evaluation recommendations by Member States 3.4.Compliance promotion and assurance 4.Method 4.1.Short description of methodology 4.2.Limitations and robustness of findings 4.3.Comparison of implementation results across the reporting years 4.4.Measuring impacts of the INSPIRE Directive 4.5.Quantification of costs and benefits

4.6.Representativeness of consultation results 4.7.Difficulty in distinguishing INSPIRE from other spatial data 5.Analysis and answers to the evaluation questions 5.1.Relevance 5.1.1.To what extent does INSPIRE still match current needs and do they continue to require action at EU level? 5.1.2.Is INSPIRE still relevant to the issues (obstacles) it addresses? 5.1.3.To what extent is INSPIRE future-proof? 5.1.4.Are the Articles 7 and 8 of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive still relevant in view of the current state of the INSPIRE infrastructures? 5.2.Effectiveness 5.2.1.What progress has been made over time towards achieving the objectives and targets set out in INSPIRE in various Member States? 5.2.2.Is the progress made in line with the initial expectations and the INSPIRE implementation roadmap? 5.2.3.Is the geographical coverage of implementation consistent with the Directive's objectives? 5.2.4.To what extent does the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in the Member States build further on the obligations of Public Access to Environmental Information Directive (specifically the provisions under Articles 7 and 8 under the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive)? 5.2.5.Which main factors have contributed to – respectively stood in the way of achieving these objectives? 5.2.6.To what extent is INSPIRE used for reporting under the environmental acquis? 5.2.7.What are the qualitative and quantitative effects of INSPIRE on the policymaking users in the field of environment in Member States? 5.2.8.What are the qualitative and quantitative effects of INSPIRE on users active in economic sectors influencing environment? 5.2.9.What are the effects of INSPIRE on small businesses using spatial data? 5.3.Efficiency 5.3.1.To what extent, and how has the intervention lead to improvements in the quality or efficiency of work of concerned stakeholders?

5.3.2.Can any specific provisions in INSPIRE be identified that make cost-efficient implementation more difficult? 5.3.3.Can the INSPIRE Directive and implementing rules be made more cost-efficient? What is the simplification potential? 5.3.4.Are results achieved so far commensurate with the resources put forward and in line with the ones expected from the ex-ante evaluation of INSPIRE? 5.3.5.How proportionate were the costs of the intervention for different stakeholder groups (enterprises including SMEs, citizens …)? 5.3.6.Have the resources needed to implement INSPIRE been available? 5.3.7.How has the use of INSPIRE for environmental reporting affected the reporting burden? 5.3.8.How would further streamlining of the provisions in Articles 7 and 8 of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive with the active dissemination provisions of the INSPIRE Directive impact the administrative burden on the Member States. 5.4.Coherence 5.4.1.To what extent is INSPIRE coherent internally? 5.4.2.To what extent is INSPIRE coherent with environmental legislation with geospatial reporting obligations? 5.4.3.To what extent is INSPIRE coherent with other relevant areas of EU policy with geospatial reporting obligations (transport, agriculture, maritime, space, health, disaster management, research)? 5.4.4.To what extent is INSPIRE coherent with the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive and the objectives of the Common European Green Deal data space? 5.4.5.To what extent is INSPIRE coherent with Directive (EU) 2019/1024 on open data and the re-use of public sector information and what are the implications of Directive 2019/1024/EU? 5.5.EU Added Value 5.5.1.What is the EU-added value of INSPIRE in comparison to what could be achieved at Member States national and/or regional level activities? 5.5.2.To what extent do the issues addressed by INSPIRE continue to require action at EU level? 6.Conclusions 6.1.Conclusions in details 6.2.Relevance 6.3.Effectiveness

6.4.Efficiency 6.5.Coherence 6.6.EU added value 6.7.Lessons Learned Glossary Term or acronym Meaning or definition AAQD Ambient Air Quality Directive BRG Better Regulation guidelines CAP Common Agricultural Policy CKAN Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network EAP Environment Action Programme EEA European Environmental Agency EFTA/EEA European Free Trade Association/ European Economic Area EGNOS European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service EIA Environmental Impact Assessment EIS Environmental Information Systems EMODnet European Marine Observation and Data Network E-PRTR European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register GIS Geographic Information System GML Geography Markup Language. The Geography Markup Language (GML) is the XML grammar defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to express geographical features. GML serves as a modeling language for geographic systems as well as an open interchange format for geographic transactions on the Internet. GSAA Geo-Spatial Aid Application HELCOM The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helsinki Commission - HELCOM) is an intergovernmental organization governing the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (Helsinki Convention). HILUCS Land Use Classification System IACS European Union countries are responsible for the administration and control of payments to farmers in their country under a principle known as 'shared management'. The main building block of the management of payments system is the integrated administration and control system (IACS). IED Industrial Emissions Directive INSPIRE Directive Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) ISO International Organisation for Standardisation IR Implementing Rules ITS Intelligent Transport Systems JRC Joint Research Centre LPIS Land Parcel Identification System MIG Maintenance and Implementation Group MSFD Marine Strategy Framework Directive MSP Maritime Spatial Planning NCP National Contact Point for the INSPIRE Directive NSDI National Spatial Data Infrastructure OAI-PMH Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting OGC Open Geospatial Consortium OGC-CSW Open Geospatial Consortium - Catalogue Service for the Web POP Persistent Organic Pollutant PSI Reuse of Public Sector Information Directive REFIT Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme SDI Spatial Data Infrastructure SEANSE Strategic Environmental Assessment North Sea Energy SEA Strategic Environmental Assessment SEIS Shared Environmental Information System TEN-T Trans-European Transport Network UWWT Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive WFD Water Framework Directive WMS A Web Map Service (WMS) is a standard protocol developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium for serving georeferenced map images over the Internet. WMTS A Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) is a standard protocol for serving pre-rendered or run-time computed georeferenced map tiles over the Internet. The specification was developed and first published by the Open Geospatial Consortium. 1.Introduction The present evaluation presents the results of the Commission’s evaluation of Directive 2007/2/EC on Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (hereinafter INSPIRE). It was included in the Commission Work Programme 2021 as part of the ‘GreenData4All’ initiative. The evaluation findings will be used in follow-up actions under the European Strategy for Data (COM (2020) 66 final) and as a digital enabler for the European Green Deal initiative (COM (2019) 640 final) including initiatives announced in the Commission Work programme for 2022. 1.1.Purpose and scope The Commission is obliged to evaluate the INSPIRE Directive every five years (starting at the latest in 2022) pursuant to Article 23 of Regulation 2019/1010 on the alignment of reporting obligations in the field of legislation related to the environment that amended the INSPIRE Directive. The evaluation has analysed the underlying mechanisms that have either contributed to or hindered the attainment of the initially defined objectives of the INSPIRE Directive (i.e. ‘the intervention’). The evaluation also builds on the mid-term evaluation published in 2016 and on studies prepared in 2019, in particular, the study on the promotion of good practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level, the 2019 Communication on Environmental Implementation Review and the study on Article 17 of the INSPIRE Directive on data- sharing. Furthermore, the evaluation gathered views from users to assess whether the appropriate data is available in a user-friendly format and in sufficient quantity to meet their needs. The INSPIRE Directive obliges Member States to share existing geospatial data to support European Union (EU) environmental policies and policies or activities which may have impact on the environment. INSPIRE should build on existing infrastructures for spatial informationalready established and operated by the Member States. Within this infrastructure, existing information systems of different authorities are connected in order to share, find and use spatial data more easily while relying on common high quality data standards. As a result, data should be comparable and useable in a cross-border and cross-sector context allowing e.g. to avoid damage to the environment and human health. This approach to sharing of governmental data was extended through the EU's 2015 Digital Single Market strategy . Building on similar principles, the EU's 2016 eGovernment Action Plan identified the establishment of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure through the implementation of INSPIRE as an important action that would help modernise public administrations, connect services across borders and engage citizens through digital interactions with governments across the EU. Directive 2003/4/EC on public access to environmental information Public Access to Environmental Information Directive) implements parts of the Aarhus Convention relating to environmental information that authorities must make available to the public. The provisions in the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive date almost 20 years back. The rapid development in digital technologies and emergence of new data sources such as citizen science and environmental sensors justify an evaluation of the data sharing and data access provisions embodied in Articles 7 and 8 of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive. These provisions are therefore part of this evaluation’s scope. These two legal instruments are the backbone of the environmental information management covering the whole of EU environmental policy. The instruments require Member States to provide public access to environmental information in an easily understandable, user-friendly manner. The framework facilitates public access to spatial information, with a view to involving members of the public further in decision-making. Recently, the EU has embarked on a green and digital transition. The two dimensions are closely interrelated, and the Commission has taken the lead to drive these transitions and to focus investments on recovery and resilience in these areas. The 2019 European Green Deal recognises the potential of digitalisation to achieve environment and climate aims and the necessity to explore sustainable digital technologies as essential enablers of the changes needed for a just green transition. In February 2020, the Commission adopted its new digital strategy titled ‘Shaping Europe’s Digital Future’ along with its first two pillars: the European Strategy for Data and a White Paper on Artificial Intelligence. The European Strategy for Data sets a vision for mutually supporting transitions to a healthy planet and a new digital world. The Strategy also recognises the necessity of data for the public good. Among other uses, the European Strategy for Data indicates that data can serve to address societal challenges, combat environmental emergencies and tackle environmental degradation and climate change. The European Strategy for Data specifically supports the Green Deal through the development of a common European Green Deal data space. The main legislative pillar for bringing data from public administrations into this Green Deal data space is the INSPIRE Directive together with the Directive on public access to environmental information. Both Directives respond to the need for better information and data that are more accessible to support policy development and better implementation. It is therefore important that they deliver as intended and keep pace with emerging technological developments. The European Strategy for Data has recognised the importance of this existing data sharing framework and has announced a ‘GreenData4All’ initiative that includes, as a starting point, the assessment of the interaction between INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC and Public Access to Environmental Information Directive. The overall objective of the ‘GreenData4all’ is to: ·modernise both the INSPIRE and the Public Access to Environmental Information Directives to align them with the contemporary state of technology; ·promote active dissemination and sharing of public- and private-held public data in support of the environmental acquis and the Green Deal objectives; and ·define and implement interoperable building blocks for sharing public data in the Green Deal data space and in alignment with the respective activities of the Destination Earth initiative, as a main contributing action in the context of the Green Deal Data Space.

This evaluation covers the implementation and application of the INSPIRE Directive and its implementing rules in all EU Member States and the EEA/EFTA countries and has followed better regulation guidelines. External consultants have in addition supported the assessment of the information collected. The general public, representatives of public administrations and industry stakeholders have participated in this process. For the effectiveness criterion, the present evaluation looks into how the INSPIRE Directive delivered on its objectives, in particular how it has contributed to different use-cases, such as sharing of data between Member State authorities, public access to spatially enabled environmental information (active dissemination) and regulatory reporting. Under the efficiency criterion, the evaluation looks into cost-efficiency of the intervention and identified potential unnecessary administrative burden of the Directive and its Implementing Rules. For assessment of coherence, the following policy areas, policy initiatives and legislative acts have been considered: ·the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive (in particular Articles 7 and 8 of the latter), how these provisions complement the INSPIRE Directive in terms of actively disseminating environmental information to the public; ·The European Green Deal; ·The European Strategy for Data; ·Directive 2019/1024/EC on open data (the ‘Open Data Directive’) and the re-use of public sector information, including the implementing act on High Value Datasets that is under preparation; ·EU environment legislation; ·EU laws that contain a reference to Inspire. Under the relevance criterion, the evaluation also considered if the INSPIRE Directive and articles 7 and 8 of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive are still sound in light of the current state of technology. 2.Background to the intervention 2.1.Description of the intervention and its objectives Developing and implementing EU environment policy requires a solid scientific knowledge and evidence base on environmental pressures, state and impacts for a large number of areas, not only in air, water or nature but also in all economic sectors which have an impact on the environment. Since 2002, the EU Sustainable Development Strategies , and the Environmental Action Programmes addressed these issues and identified the need for better information to support the integrated knowledge-base for environmental policies. The Commission came forward with a proposal for the INSPIRE Directive in 2004 focussing mainly on 'spatial data', i.e. information related to a location or area on Earth . This issue has been also underlined in the European Green Deal. What are spatial data and why do we need to share them across borders? Spatial data are everywhere and we use them on a daily basis. Spatial data are data that are linked to a specific location, e.g. an address, the location of a building, a road, a river, an industrial or commercial facility, a monitoring station or a cadastral parcel. For thousands of years, we used maps or an atlas for this purpose. With digitalisation, it has become much easier to manage and use spatial data. Nowadays, we take it for granted to navigate using satellite navigation or to check the location of anything on the Internet using our electronic devices. The modern world needs increasingly up-to-date spatial data and the use of spatial date is constantly on the rise. We want to know where things are and what is happening there (e.g. the weather forecast or bathing water quality at our holiday destination). Consider the example of the volcano eruption in Iceland in 2010. Immediately, data on air pollution and visibility were needed across Europe. This was urgent for services such as air traffic control but also for understanding the impacts the eruption was having on air quality and hence the health of citizens. The easier and quicker such data could be shared across borders, the better decisions could be taken. The data infrastructure set by the INSPIRE Directive specifically serves these kind of situations and purposes. It applies in many other environmental issues which have a cross-border effect, be it flooding, pollution or the tracing of migratory birds. In order to use such spatial data across administrative levels or borders, they need to be standardised and easy to use, view, search or download. The main challenge is when data are used across borders, standardisation is often missing. In the past, we could find different terms, definitions, attributes or scale levels and all of this in different languages. Drawing from this experience, INSPIRE ensures that spatial data can be accessed and compared across borders and also to use them for electronic services. A wide range of environmental, geographical, social and economic spatial data exists and is being collected. Such location-based information is relevant for environmental policies, covering many thematic areas (water, air, biodiversity, waste, emissions, impact assessments, natural and technological hazards, public access to environmental information, etc.). Also in the context of policies having an impact on the environment (such as transport, agriculture, energy, land-use planning, regional development, etc.) spatial data is systematically collected. This is valuable in the context of environmental policy development and implementation. The INSPIRE Directive was designed to address the spatial data needs of thematic environmental policies by removing the four main categories of obstacles to the availability of such data: 1.A wide variety of organisational, cultural, institutional, financial and legal obstacles hampered the sharing and re-use of spatial data by public authorities and public stakeholders; 2.Spatial data were difficult to find on the Internet and poorly documented;

3.Many public authorities did not have online services in place allowing consultation and use of their spatial data; 4.Spatial data was often organised in incompatible formats making it difficult to combine different spatial data sets in the absence of a common vocabulary. The INSPIRE Directive does not require the collection of new data, or establish requirements on the scale or the quality of spatial data. The Directive promotes the sharing of existing spatial data relevant to environmental policies through the spatial data infrastructures that are operated by the Member States. The intervention logic for the INSPIRE Directive is described in Annex 4, part B. It sets out the different measures of the Directive and how they were expected to interact. The intervention logic used in the evaluation in 2016 has been revised to provide a solid foundation illustrating the causal chains and the underlying assumptions that guide the current evaluation of the INSPIRE Directive and its implementation. The intervention logic is relevant at two levels: (a) to establish an overall understanding of the whole intervention (‘big picture view’ of the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive) and the interlinkages between the different provisions; (b) to establish an in-depth understanding of the causal pathways and assumptions for each type of activity. The general objective of the INSPIRE Directive remains the establishment of an EU-wide infrastructure for spatial information based on compatible Member States infrastructures and that is useable in a trans-boundary context within the EU for the purposes of EU environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. What is a European spatial data infrastructure (as promoted by the INSPIRE Directive)? A European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI) is about making it easier to find, use and share the available data from administrations and governments, in particular across border and throughout the whole of the European Union. The idea is to develop an approach which follows a number of common principles: - Data should be collected only once and kept where it can be maintained most effectively. - It should be possible to combine seamless spatial information from different sources across Europe and share it with many users and applications. - It should be possible for information collected at one level/scale to be shared with all levels/scales (from local to regional, to national to the EU level). - Geographic information needed for good governance at all levels should be readily and transparently available. - Available geographic information should be easy to find and it should be clear how it can be used to meet a particular need, and under which conditions it can be acquired and used. INSPIRE has translated these principles into legislation. Building on already existing national Spatial Data Infrastructures in the Member States, it sets the foundation for the creation of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure for the European Union. It establishes requirements for the governance of the organisational (coordination amongst public administrations, identification of spatial data) and technical components (quality of data, metadata, interoperable services supporting view, search and download) of the Spatial Data Infrastructure. These requirements enable the sharing of environmental spatial information among public sector organisations and better facilitate public access to spatial information across Europe. The development of such a European spatial data infrastructure should create, amongst other benefits, the reduction of administrative burdens and the creation of new business opportunities. Businesses are now using such administrative data to provide better services to the public (such as combining predictions on weather and air quality or integrating real-time traffic information in business processes such as providing information about road construction sites through satellite navigations) . The insurance sector is increasingly using geographical data to improve profitability by improving their understanding of risks at locations and verifying the content of claims. Moreover, real estate companies are increasingly factoring in environmental information, e.g. when determining house prices (e.g. whether they are situated in a flood risk area) and utility network operators are leveraging spatial data to avoid excavation damage . Therefore, INSPIRE sets a coherent legal framework for: ·Sharing spatial data across the EU; ·Coordination structures on spatial information at Member States and EU level; ·Identification of spatial data needed ; ·Documentation of identified spatial data through metadata ; ·Ensuring that the documented spatial data is accessible online through data services allowing its discovery, view and download and, where needed transformation; ·Organising the documented spatial data in interoperable data models with a common vocabulary and online accessible through the IT services; ·Allow data access and reuse over administrative and national borders through data sharing. This framework is implemented through 14 'actions' as explained below. These actions are the specific provisions of the INSPIRE Directive imposing obligations mainly on Member States but also on EU institutions. Those actions should be implemented according to an agreed timetable, in several ‘steps’ as laid down in the INSPIRE Directive and its implementing rules . Overall, the actions can be grouped into five distinctive steps (see also Figure 1, a more detailed overview is provided in Annex 4, Part A): ·Step 1 concerns transposition, the establishment of coordination structures and a data policy. ·Steps 2-5 relate to a sequential set of actions all related to ‘spatial data’. They have to be identified (step 2) and documented (step 3). Thereafter, online services (step 4) have to be established and finally the spatial data should be transformed (step 5) in accordance with agreed data models in order to facilitate the re-use of the data. At the time of this evaluation, most of the obligations under the five steps had to be completed.

Who will benefit from the Directive’s implementation? Two different sorts of benefits are identified: (a) benefits in terms of cost savings i.e. efficiency gains, enabling existing needs to be met more cheaply (these benefits accrue to both data producers and data users); and (b) benefits in terms of the ability of users to access and to use data in new and innovative ways increasing productive potential or improving the efficiency and effectiveness of policy responses. The INSPIRE Directive will ensure overall coherence and ease of use of the spatial data underpinning the information made available to citizens. The resulting better information to the public will lead to increased confidence in the accuracy and relevance of public sector information, leading to more engagement in the democratic process of environmental protection and, eventually, in other areas of government action. The INSPIRE Directive will also enable public sector information to be exploited by the private sector, thereby stimulating the creation of added value services useful to the public. INSPIRE will furthermore allow the private sector to publish their data along with the public sector data, provide to public and private organisations a wider choice of data to underpin their activities. National authorities and data providers will be beneficiaries in terms of gains in efficiency and in terms of the potential for improvements in policy performance. They will however also have to attribute the necessary resources for the implementation if the INSPIRE Directive. Whether authorities or providers are net contributors or beneficiaries will depend on a number of factors, e.g. the extent to which the organisation is both user and producer, the degree of standardisation already achieved etc. Citizens, private sector data users, research institutes are mainly beneficiaries of the INSPIRE Directive. The benefits for these organisations arise from having (potential) access to existing data. Private sector data users and research institutes will reduce their search costs and reduce costs of data collection. The European Commission, international bodies and academic institutions are possible beneficiaries since INSPIRE will reduce the costs of analysing pan-European information for policy making and policy implementation purposes.

2.2.Baseline and points of comparison The state-of-play summary report of December 2007 was used to establish a baseline for the status of national spatial data infrastructures as it reflects the situation at the time of entry into force of the Directive. In 2014, the Commission presented a report on the implementation of INSPIRE to the European Parliament and to the Council assessing whether the INSPIRE Directive was still fit-for-purpose at the half way mark of its implementation. The midterm evaluation, that looked at the progress made between 2007 and 2014 including the transposition of the Directive into national law. It showed that many of the barriers identified in the original Impact Assessment were still relevant. Despite the progress made by some Member States, the implementation gaps in most Member States were significant and underlined the differences in speed and quality of implementation. The findings in relation to the different implementation steps were summed up as follows: ·All Member States had coordination structures in place, but their effectiveness was variable; ·National data policies for sharing data were highly variable and heterogeneous; ·Progress was made as regards the spatial datasets identified and reported. However, for many Member States, the numbers remained low (less than 150) and with limited thematic coverage; ·Implementation of the documentation obligations was advanced, yet only 12 Member States had documented 80 to 100 % of their reported spatial data in line with the INSPIRE Directive by 2014; ·Member States made progress on the online discovery services available for their identified and documented datasets. These services give users access to the documentation. The overall availability of digital services for viewing and downloading spatial data for further use was less advanced; ·The interoperability of the spatial datasets had not advanced much mainly because the main implementation deadlines were still in the future (2017, 2020). The 2014 evaluation marks an interim implementation milestone. The end date for the period covered by the evaluation is January 2021. This evaluation assesses the further implementation progress between 2014 and 2021 building on the evidence gathered for the midterm evaluation and provides an understanding on how the situation during this period has changed, also compared to the situation prevalent at the time of the adoption of the Directive in 2007. Such consideration allows to evaluate progress against the initial objectives set for the intervention and to conclude whether and to what extent it has still been relevant over the last seven years (2014-2021). The baseline for quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure and compare progress is based on the monitoring and reporting provisions in the INSPIRE Directive that require Member States to monitor and report on the implementation status on an annual basis. Until 2018, Commission Decision 2009/442/EC regulated monitoring and reporting. In 2019, this Decision was repealed and replaced by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/1372, which introduced the automated calculation of 19 new indicators through the direct use of the INSPIRE Geoportal and the INSPIRE Reference Validator to process the metadata harvested from Member States discovery services. These indicators are grouped into five categories: availability of spatial data and services, conformity of metadata, conformity of spatial data sets, accessibility of spatial data sets through view and download services, and conformity of network services. Most indicators are calculated as a percentage, thus providing a direct measure of performance and allowing country-by-country comparisons. The scoring methodology for monitoring indicators used for this evaluation is mimicking the JRC Summary Report on Status of implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in EU (the 2016 country fiches).

3.Implementation / state of Play 3.1.Description of the current situation This section describes the implementation status of the INSPIRE Directive in each of the 27 Member States and the 4 EEA/EFTA countries at the beginning of 2021, including a reflection to which extent the 2016 INSPIRE midterm evaluation recommendations have been followed up and implemented. The simplified intervention logic described in Figure 1 is the basis for the evaluation. A detailed intervention logic is provided in Annex 1, Part B. Before assessing these elements, the status of implementation in relation to the actions which were already required by end 2020 is described on the basis of country summary reports, yearly monitoring data, country fiches and data and services available in the EU geoportal. 3.2.How has the implementation and application of INSPIRE evolved from 2014 to 2020 and how it has affected different stakeholders? All Member States have installed a coordination structure and governance for their INSPIRE implementation. Since 2014 we see a continuous positive trend in ensuring an effective coordination of the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in the Member States. This is mainly demonstrated by a more comprehensive and complete representation of public administrations responsible for maintaining and publishing spatial data in scope of the INSPIRE Directive (national mapping agencies, cadastres, environmental administrations, statistical administrations, …). The coordination structure reflects the administrative culture and the constitutional setup of the Member State (federated vs centralized, involvement of local authorities). In some cases, the INSPIRE Directive implementation was initially setup purely from a national mapping and cadastral agencies (NMCA) perspective, resulting in a strong focus on Annex I and II data sets following the implementation roadmap timeline and showing gaps on the availability of Annex III data sets and the coordination with the environmental domain. Awareness has been raised and most Member States have started to remediate this deficiency. The documentation of spatial data sets and services through metadata has proven to raise the awareness about the availability of spatial data in the public administration and as such has improved spatial data sharing and use. Usage of discovery services is limited mostly to professional users thus making spatial data and services not discoverable for wider user community. In Member States where the service offering is limited or of low quality, usage of the infrastructure tends to be limited. In some Member States, the Open Data Directive is higher on the political agenda and more importance is given to making data available as open data. This does not necessarily conflict with the ambitions of the INSPIRE Directive. On the contrary, in information-mature Member States where Open Data and INSPIRE ambitions are implemented in a complementary way the use of spatial data and the INSPIRE infrastructure is prevalent. In Member States where the only driver for the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive is its legal obligation and where no use cases are being developed or where INSPIRE implementation is done in isolation, the use of the infrastructure is limited. There is a growing demand for uniform European information products within the INSPIRE infrastructure that can support and facilitate EU-level use cases. It is expected that these products will also gradually enhance the use of the infrastructure. Following the midterm evaluation recommendations, the Commission has selected monitoring and reporting under the environmental acquis as a priority use case for the development of a first set of pan-European information products. Based on the evaluation of reporting obligations under the environmental legislation a priority list of eReporting data sets related to environmental reporting obligations was prepared by the Commission in collaboration with the Commission expert group working on the maintenance and implementation of INSPIRE (MIG). This list of datasets is a rolling list that will be further extended in view of tangible information needs to adequately evaluate the effects on the environment of EU environmental legislation and its effectiveness, efficiency and coherence with other pieces of EU legislation. Data policies that ensure effective data sharing without obstacles remain a point of attention in at least five Member States. Member States strongly advocate the benefits of the Directive but quantification of direct costs and benefits remains difficult. The monitoring data and country fiches over the years show that, overall, there has been a partial implementation of the INSPIRE Directive across Europe. Fewer data sets were available in 2020 than in the previous years. In some cases, this is a result of the data cleaning processes at national level, aggregating local and regional datasets and deleting irrelevant data sets for users and/or duplicates of data sets. Another reason for removing data sets may also be that Member States consider this data cleaning process as an opportunity to improve their overall monitoring indicators by removing those data sets that do not pass compliance testing. The INSPIRE monitoring indicators show that the status of the implementation is heterogeneous, with at least twelve countries lagging behind. It is important to consider that the new reporting and monitoring method introduced by Commission Decision (EU) 2019/1372 caused considerable breaks in the trend, lowering the values of INSPIRE indicators in the reference years 2019 and 2020. The new automated approach based on the processing of all metadata harvested from countries' discovery services entails a stricter and more reliable validation method than previous self-declared country assessments. Measured against the INSPIRE roadmap, the monitoring results in 2020 for the 27 EU Member States and 4 EFTA/ EEA countries are in general below expectations. A snapshot of the current implementation status for 27 Member States and the four EFTA/ EEA countries combined is provided in the table below. The overview is based on the regulatory reporting and monitoring obligations stipulated in Article 21 of the INSPIRE Directive and the INSPIRE monitoring indicators introduced by the Commission Decision in 2019. Envisaged outputs according the intervention logic Coordination structures on spatial information at Member States Measures of data sharing are that allow data access and reuse over administrative and national borders.Measures of data sharing are that allow data access and reuse over administrative and national borders. Average performance Effective coordination  Data sharing arrangements and usage of the infrastructure  Identification of spatial data needed Total amount DSi1.1: The number of spatial data sets for which metadata exist 83,805 DSi1.2: The number of spatial data services for which metadata exist 95,381 DSi1.3: The number of spatial data sets for which the metadata contains one or more keywords from a register provided by the Commission indicating that the spatial data set is used for reporting under the environmental legislation 2,068 DSi1.4: The number of spatial data sets for which the metadata contains a keyword from a register provided by the Commission indicating that the spatial data set covers regional territory 12,917 DSi1.5: The number of spatial data sets for which the metadata contains a keyword from a register provided by the Commission indicating that the spatial data set covers the national territory 4,456 Documentation of identified spatial data through metadata Average performance MDi1.1: Percentage of metadata for spatial data sets conformant with Commission Regulation (EC) No 1205/2008 as regards metadata 59% MDi1.2: Percentage of metadata for spatial data services conformant with Commission Regulation (EC) No 1205/2008 as regards metadata 55% Organise the documented spatial data in interoperable data models with a common vocabulary and online accessible through the IT services. Average performance DSi2: Percentage of spatial data sets that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 as regards interoperability of spatial data sets 50% DSi2.1: Percentage of spatial data sets, corresponding to the themes listed in Annex I, that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 as regards interoperability of spatial data sets 65% DSi2.2: Percentage of spatial data sets, corresponding to the themes listed in Annex II, that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 as regards interoperability of spatial data sets 52% DSi2.3: Percentage of spatial data sets, corresponding to the themes listed in Annex III, that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 as regards interoperability of spatial data sets 50% NSi2: The percentage of spatial data sets that are accessible through view and download services 42% NSi2.1: The percentage of spatial data sets that are accessible through view services 50% NSi2.2: The percentage of spatial data sets that are accessible through download services 50% Ensure that the documented spatial data is accessible online through data services allowing its discovery, view and download and, where needed transformation. Average performance NSi4: The percentage of the network services that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EC) No 976/2009 as regards the network services 63% NSi4.1: The percentage of the discovery services that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EC) No 976/2009 as regards the network services 65% NSi4.2: The percentage of the view services that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EC) No 976/2009 as regards the network services 65% NSi4.3: The percentage of the download services that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EC) No 976/2009 as regards the network services 62% NSi4.4: The percentage of the transformation services that are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EC) No 976/2009 as regards the network services 25% A direct comparison of the country monitoring indicators across different years is not possible due to the legislative and technical changes in 2019 that included a partial redefinition of the monitoring indicators and promoted automated calculation of the monitoring indicators to minimise the reporting burden on the countries. It is important to note that the scoring must be therefore interpreted in the way that progress trends cannot be established based solely on these summarized results and without detailed understanding of the national contexts. 3.3.To what extent have the recommendations from the 2016 INSPIRE REFIT evaluation been implemented? The midterm evaluation refers to the situation of implementation in 2013-14. It found that INSPIRE was largely fit-for-purpose, but that further efforts are needed at EU and Member State level to close the remaining implementation gaps and to harvest the full benefits of the Directive. Moreover, specific issues needing attention concern the data policy provisions in the Directive (Article 17) and requirements and use of some of the technical specifications in the implementing rules (including the streamlining of reporting). Consequently, the Commission had issued a number of recommendations and actions, which are now being implemented in close collaboration with the Member States as part of an updated Maintenance and Implementation Work Programme 2016-2020. The Member States increased the overall availability of environmental priority data sets according to one of the recommendations in the midterm evaluation. In terms of coordination between the national INSPIRE implementation and eGovernment, open data and other relevant processes at national level, there are limited linkages in terms of logistical work and cooperation. Nevertheless, it is mostly considered that these initiatives are coherent with the INSPIRE Directive, and that in some cases, the national data policies benefit from its implementation by facilitating an environment of free and open data.

The gathered evidence further shows that most of the recommendations addressed to the European Commission have been implemented through several initiatives and actions summarized in the MIG Work Programme 2016-2020. Initiatives include the evaluation study on data sharing between public authorities and public access and use provisions; proposal for a regulation streamlining reporting obligations in the field of environmental policy; new monitoring and reporting decision; list of common datasets related to environmental reporting obligations; technical cooperation and coordination. 3.3.1.Follow-Up on 2016 REFIT evaluation recommendations by the Commission First recommendation: Evaluate the shortcomings of the national data policies in relation to Article 17 of the Directive in more detail. The Commission assessed the maturity of data sharing between public authorities in 2019 and found that implementation was on-going and that further harmonisation of data policies and licenses for data reuse in the Member States was necessary. Other remaining obstacles limiting data sharing were the availability of the data, broken links and missing services to provide access to the data. This can be improved by further promoting the use of INSPIRE data in practice and demonstrating their benefit. The environmental e-Reporting use case and the list of priority data for e-reporting are considered good practices to stimulate implementation. Benefits can also be expected from further aligning Article 17 on data sharing of the INSPIRE Directive with the reviewed Directive on Open Data and on the re-use of public sector information. Moreover, the selected data categories in the foreseen implementing act on High Value Datasets have a clear overlap with the data scope of the INSPIRE Directive and could benefit from reusing already available spatial data in the INSPIRE infrastructure. Second recommendation: Review, and possibly revise, the INSPIRE rules, in particular on spatial data harmonisation, to take into account the implementing risks and complexities with a view to reducing them (simplifying requirements). Experience from the midterm evaluation and the Fitness Check on reporting and monitoring have shown the need to simplify and streamline monitoring and reporting, support better comparison of the progress in the implementation across Member States and allow for national and EU-wide overviews while reducing administrative monitoring and reporting burden. Monitoring and reporting have been aligned and streamlined by simplifying the legal provisions and amending the related Implementing Decision to make it more meaningful and effective. The Regulation on alignment of reporting obligations in the field of environment policy entered into force on 26 June 2019. The proposal for a review of the reporting Decision was adopted by the INSPIRE Committee on 27 November 2018 and published on 19 August 2019. Reporting under the new regime took effect from 15 December 2019 and the JRC has developed a reporting tool, which makes the whole monitoring and reporting process much more effective and efficient. Furthermore, the Commission has gathered evidence in 2017-2018 on possible issues/improvements to the INSPIRE framework. The findings have been discussed with Member States’ experts, which will be reflected in the review of the interoperability regulation. This will make the application of the data specifications easier and less burdensome without losing the benefits of standardisation and interoperability. The intention is to adopt the revised Regulation in 2022. Third recommendation: Assist the Member States in applying and implementing the INSPIRE Directive (simplification of use), e.g. by the use of common tools, and promote priority setting together with the Member States. The Commission has selected monitoring and reporting under the environmental acquis as a priority use case for the development of a first set of pan-European information products. Based on the evaluation of reporting obligations under the environmental legislation, a preliminary list of common datasets related to environmental reporting obligations was prepared and the number of environmental priority datasets in the INSPIRE catalogue made accessible by Member States is gradually increasing. Fourth recommendation: Work closely with Member States to explore opportunities arising from the use of existing EU-level funding programmes to help capacity building and close the INSPIRE implementation gaps (e.g. through the Interoperability Solutions Administrations). The Commission has informed the Member States about funding opportunities. 3.3.2.Follow-Up on 2016 REFIT evaluation recommendations by Member States Member States should step up their efforts in implementing (e.g. on their coordination activities) and critically reviewing the effectiveness of their data policies. This applies in particular to those Member States lagging most behind if they are to meet future implementation deadlines. In addition, Member States, in consultation with the Commission, are recommended to: ·give priority to environmental spatial datasets, in particular those linked to monitoring and reporting, and those identified in relevant global processes; ·improve coordination between the national INSPIRE implementation and eGovernment, open data and other relevant processes at national level. The (quantified and qualified) progress made by the Member States vis-à-vis the follow-up actions identified in the midterm evaluation is documented in country fiches and a comparative EU overview fiche. Moreover, the reengineered INSPIRE Geoportal, that was released in September 2018, provides an online dashboard that allows for assessing the actual state of implementation in the Member States.

The actions put forward in the Maintenance and Implementation Work Programme for 2017-2020 and continued under the new Maintenance and Implementation Work Programme (WP) for 2021-2024 are continuously monitored and several of them have been completed. The new programme has three main area of work: 1) digital ecosystem for the environment and sustainability, 2) Towards a common implementation landing zone, 3) GreenData4All. 3.4.Compliance promotion and assurance EU pilot letters were sent to five Member States who failed to connect their discovery services to the INSPIRE Geoportal and bilateral technical implementation meetings (20) or written exchanges (2) with the Member States were held during the period September 2015 - April 2016. As a follow-up, Member States were invited to draw up an action plan for improving the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in conjunction with the next national tri-annual report, which was due on 15 May 2016. The bilateral meetings proved very effective and were appreciated by the Commission services and the Member States. Most Member States critically reviewed their INSPIRE implementation and provided an action plan in 2016 for the period 2016-2020 to remedy existing implementation issues and further improve the overall conformity of the implementation. This resulted in a further increase of transparency of environmental information, also improving the implementation of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive, in terms of improving public access to environmental information and the quality of the data. The action plans showed a common understanding and awareness of remaining implementation challenges and demonstrated the goodwill of Member States to address these. In addition, the Commission launched a two-yearly review of implementation of EU law with the Environmental Implementation Review (EIR). The EIR country reports on Member States implementation status included in section V on "Effective governance and knowledge" the evaluation of the INSPIRE evidence-base available to the Commission also building on the bilateral meetings and the INSPIRE country reports. The EIR reports also assessed the status of Member States’ data policies and related practices on sharing information, as supported by both the INSPIRE and the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive. In order to establish a pragmatic way of dealing with INSPIRE implementation, it was agreed with the Member States to give higher importance to selected environmental reporting data to ensure better usability, comparability and access. An initial priority list of data sets was prepared to serve environmental reporting needs covering a number of areas such as water, waste, air, nature, etc. In the period December 2017 - January 2018, the five bad application EU Pilots’ procedures were closed and Member States were requested to prioritise the publication and accessibility of priority data sets for reporting. Those Member States which did not engage in this exercise were found in breach of the INSPIRE Directive and after several reminders, a first wave of infringements (against Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland) was initiated with a letter of formal notice on 8 March 2019. 4.Method 4.1.Short description of methodology The evaluation was carried out in line with the Better Regulation Guidelines and the assessment was guided by a set of 30 evaluation questions (see Annex 3), which have been operationalised in an evaluation questions matrix. This formed the basis for the data collection activities and analytical work. The evaluation questions were structured around the current implementation status of the INSPIRE Directive and the five evaluation criteria. Country forms were prepared based on the desk review of country summary reports, yearly monitoring data and other relevant materials. Country forms, developed for 27 Member States and 4 EEA/EFTA countries, were shared with the respective National Contact Points (NCPs) before being finalised. The development of country forms to assess the current implementation status was tightly intertwined with a broader review and analysis of relevant available information and evidence in a desk study. In this desk study, quantitative and qualitative data from reports, scientific articles, evaluations and other data sources on the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive were collected and reviewed. Furthermore, as part of the stakeholder consultations several data collection activities were conducted to complete the evidence, including scoping interviews and Focus Group interviews with various Member States authorities and stakeholders. On 19 April 2021, the public consultation was launched for the duration of 12 weeks and four targeted surveys were launched at the end of April targeting the environmental, agricultural, marine and spatial data sectors. Each of the five evaluation criteria was analysed in relation to specific elements of INSPIRE Directive following the causal pathways in the updated intervention logic (see Annex 4, Part B). The evaluation matrix linked the evaluation questions to indicators/success criteria and used information sources. The evaluation framework was critical in guiding the data collection and the subsequent use of data for the analysis. It ensured that all aspects of the evaluation questions were answered in a systematic and traceable manner. The main analytical method used for most questions was content analysis, based on the aggregation and analysis of information collected with the literature review, desk study, targeted questionnaires, interviews, public consultation and validation workshop. Data were analysed according to the principles of triangulation of evidence from different perspectives (stakeholder categories) and different sources. Finally, focus was placed on assessing the reliability of information used. 4.2.Limitations and robustness of findings Although the analysis encompassed a wide range of data, information and views of stakeholders and Member States, some methodological limitations remained. For each evaluation criterion it was assessed what the key limitations are and what a proposed mitigation measure could be, e.g. using alternative sources or types of data. The main limitations and gaps identified during this evaluation are described in the following paragraphs. 4.3.Comparison of implementation results across the reporting years There is a significant shift in the trend observed, between the year 2018 and 2019, due to the change of the INSPIRE monitoring and reporting process following the adoption of a new reporting Decision in 2019. Since 2019, the process has been managed by the JRC and is fully automated using the INSPIRE Geoportal and the INSPIRE Reference Validator software tools to process the metadata harvested from the Member States' discovery services. The new automated approach based on the processing of all metadata harvested from countries' discovery services entails a stricter and more reliable validation method than previous self-declared country assessments. As a result of this change in data, the implementation results cannot be directly compared across the reporting years. In order to mitigate this limitation, the Member States and the four EFTA/EEA countries were given the opportunity to provide additional explanations in the country forms regarding their internal challenges and other reasons for the drop in their performance over the years. These explanations have been taken into consideration in the assessment of the implementation progress. 4.4.Measuring impacts of the INSPIRE Directive It is difficult to measure the impacts, as users of spatial information data in different applications based on INSPIRE are not always aware where the data comes from. Users often do not know whether data they use/would like to use result from the implementation of INSPIRE or from something else (e.g. national legislation). One such example is the application making publicly accessible real time air quality data. Because of this challenge, it is sometimes difficult to trace a real driver for many important initiatives such e-Government and national open data strategies. For this reason, this evaluation aims to provide a transparent overview of where data comes from and how it is interpreted by different stakeholders. In addition, the evaluation conclusions are carefully drawn, acknowledging the limitations of results of different collection tools. 4.5.Quantification of costs and benefits

In the efficiency analysis, the main data gaps relate to assessment of costs and benefits in quantitative terms. Due to the limited data in this regard (from the country fiches), there are challenges related to the cost and benefit assessment as well as with the comparability of data across the Member States. As there are also several objectives, such as data sharing between administrations and making information available to the public, it is not possible to precisely define the quantitative benefits of making information available to the public. This is for several reasons, for example, it is difficult to quantify what is the value of information actively disseminated to the public, in terms of facilitating informed decision-making, how this might impact the health of citizens, etc. In addition, national data providers often do not have a separate budget line for the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. Further, available estimates and estimates provided by stakeholders are not comparable, e.g. they may include different cost items, they may not rest on the same methodologies and often, INSPIRE costs have not been clearly separated from other costs. For example, costs of developing national SDIs are often included in the estimates. In order to mitigate this, available studies on cost and benefits have been collected and used as well as dedicated cost-benefit analysis. In addition, qualitative data has been collected through the interviews, targeted surveys and public consultation. 4.6.Representativeness of consultation results Reaching a representative number of respondents in each targeted survey and each stakeholder group and a balance between Member States proved difficult. In particular, the targeted surveys of the marine and agriculture communities experienced low response rates, and results from the targeted survey of the environmental community did not provide a very comprehensive picture across the EU on how INSPIRE is used for environmental reporting (see also Annex 4 of the supporting Study). The Focus Group interviews with Member States generally provided a satisfactory range of stakeholders involved in the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive at national level. However, in several Focus Groups, environmental stakeholders (institutions responsible for sectoral environmental policies and therefore sectoral environmental datasets) were not represented, also because these organisations play a limited role in the governance structure in some Member States. As a result, some information was gathered on the relations between INSPIRE and environmental reporting, on the use of INSPIRE for environmental policy-making and the coherence of INSPIRE with the implementation of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive. The Focus Groups was also given the opportunity to provide written answers. 4.7.Difficulty in distinguishing INSPIRE from other spatial data During Focus Group interviews, it became apparent that some stakeholders make the distinction between INSPIRE datasets and the data included in the overall national SDI. Some Member States have developed two different spatial data infrastructures: one for national use and one for the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. As a result, it is difficult to assess the effects of the INSPIRE Directive, especially when it comes to costs and benefits. Therefore, this evaluation considers the statements provided during the Focus Group in a transparent and objective manner allowing for clear conclusions whether they concern INSPIRE datasets only or a wider set of national spatial data. 5.Analysis and answers to the evaluation questions This chapter replies to the evaluation questions and sets out the supporting arguments to underpin the findings based on information and assessment carried out in the context of the supporting study (in particular, chapters 5 and 6). 5.1.Relevance 5.1.1.To what extent does INSPIRE still match current needs and do they continue to require action at EU level? From a policy perspective, the relevance of the INSPIRE Directive’s objectives in view of the twin challenge of a green and digital transformation has even increased. The INSPIRE Directive together with the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive has been identified as the main pillar for bringing data from public administrations into the Green Deal data space. This ambition has been articulated in the Commission Communication ’A European strategy for data’ under the ‘GreenData4All’ initiative. The European Strategy for Data indicates, amongst other uses, that data can serve to address societal challenges, combat environmental emergencies and tackle environmental degradation and climate change. To do so, the European Strategy for Data specifically supports the Green Deal ambitions through the development of a common European Green Deal data space. The evaluation demonstrates that the national and public authorities have a need for spatial data for the different phases of their policymaking (design of policy, monitoring of policy, reporting and assessment of results and effects) and put great emphasis to sharing this spatial data with the public. This spatial data need remains the main challenge and justifies EU action. The INSPIRE Directive addresses these needs. For other actors (companies, NGOs, researchers, citizens), limited information has been gathered on their actual information needs. Table 1 gives an indication of the availability of spatial data using the existing national portals for spatial data in the Member States as a proxy. Twenty-one Member States have more than one geoportal. Most of these portals are in national languages and do not indicate whether these are making use of INPIRE conformant datasets. For most of these geoportals there is limited data gathered of concrete use (either number and type of users and frequency of use or use-case). Member States that offer data, services and targeted end-user applications through their geoportal(s) and do gather metrics on the usage show positive effects of making spatial (not necessarily INSPIRE) data available e.g. for Luxembourg it is explicitly mentioned that ‘independently of the special geoportal dedicated to INSPIRE, the national geoportal of Luxembourg has been a great success and is widely used by the general public. It counts more than 50,000 visitors per day, through its different viewers, web services and APIs’. Indeed, the INSPIRE portal is an independent subsection of the Luxembourgish SDI and only offers a subset of the rich spatial data offering in the national geoportal. Member State Number of examples of geoportals Member State Number of examples of geoportals Latvia 10 Slovakia 5 Sweden 9 Italy 4 Croatia 8 Netherlands 4 Cyprus 8 Slovenia 4 Finland 7 Spain 4 Belgium 7 France 3 Greece 7 Hungary 3 Austria 6 Ireland 2 Bulgaria 6 Portugal 1 Denmark 6 Estonia 1 Czechia 5 Lithuania 1 Germany 5 Luxembourg 1 Romania 5 Malta 1 Source: Current status country forms for 27 Member States. Furthermore, several examples are provided in the current status country forms of Member States where INSPIRE has been instrumental in developing access and use of the spatial data e.g. Latvia, Belgium and Portugal. 5.1.2. Is INSPIRE still relevant to the issues (obstacles) it addresses? The main finding indicates that many of the obstacles considered when the Directive entered into force persist and that further action is required at the EU level to address these obstacles. There has also been evolution of technology and information requirements which point to a need for improvement of the INSPIRE Directive.

The 2004 Impact Assessment identified several obstacles justifying an EU action: ·difficulties of access to information (insufficient metadata at all levels); ·different projections and scales, making existing information difficult to integrate; ·unclear status of the information as to its currency; ·prohibitive cost of geographical data; ·lack of interoperability between data sets, and among web-enabled services; ·lack of harmonisation in the codes used to represent the objects described; ·varying data quality from one country to another within the same layer of geographical information; ·lack of long-term solutions (instead: supply of snapshots, absence of information on changes), resulting in information that became quickly outdated and hence the need for duplication of data collection efforts. Under the state of implementation section above (See 3.1, 3.2) and the analysis of effectiveness (See 5.2.1, 5.2.2) the evaluation showed that the Directive has not permitted to fully overcome all of these obstacles which therefore remain (at least partially) valid. The midterm evaluation also identified this and reiterated the relevance of the Directive to address the still persisting obstacles by issuing recommendations. These recommendations have not been fully implemented by the Member States (See 3.2.2). The relevance was also confirmed by the public consultation as respondents overall consider that action is required at the EU level to address obstacles and needs related to sharing and disseminating spatial data as addressed by the INSPIRE Directive. So in short, there remains wide support to overcome the obstacles to data access, however the Directive needs to take into account evolution in technology and information management to be more fit for purpose to deliver on its objectives. 5.1.3.To what extent is INSPIRE future-proof? The evaluation identified some of the technical specifications for the INSPIRE framework as a barrier to current and future implementation as well as use. The legal framework is considered too prescriptive and rigid to respond to fast evolving technology and information needs with the necessary agility. The implementing rules (on metadata, network services and interoperability) and associated technical guidelines have been developed to support the development of interoperable data sets and services under the scope of the INSPIRE framework, which have been considered by stakeholders as useful and essential for high quality data management. However, one of the main barriers to implementation identified by Member States (see 5.2.5) relates to the complexity of implementing INSPIRE in the light of various technical issues. The technical over-specification of the Directive was identified as a burden for its full implementation. It impacts on the resources and competences needed for implementation in Member States and limits the relevance of the Directive for potential users (outside of EU authorities and data providers) that would need more flexibility in the use, and in particular in the standards and formats. Moreover, in the conceptualisation of INSPIRE, it was assumed in multiple cases that requirements which were during the scoping stage not supported by software tools and libraries would be implemented once proposed and endorsed by INSPIRE. Unfortunately, this rarely happened. Typical examples in this respect are lack of support for complex GML attributes in desktop GIS clients and extended capabilities of INSPIRE OGC network services. In both cases, those requirements have been to a large extent difficult to implement, but also not very well supported by clients and servers. That is why, it would be important to align technical requirements as much as possible to functionalities that are already supported (out-of-the-box) by existing tools. In that sense, even though the ambition of accessibility and interoperability of environmental spatial data remain and continue to be relevant for the Member States, the technical provisions of the Directive do not seem to be future-proof, which could benefit from further simplification and streamlining. 5.1.4.Are the Articles 7 and 8 of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive still relevant in view of the current state of the INSPIRE infrastructures? The evaluation found that the objectives of both Directives are highly relevant in the context of the European Green Deal . They respond to the need for better information and data that are more accessible to the public and public authorities to support policy development and better implementation.

The evaluation did not find major inconsistencies between the INSPIRE Directive and the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive. There is some difference in data scope of Articles 7 and 8 of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive and the scope of the INSPIRE Directive. The INSPIRE Directive has been designed to be consistent with the EU legal framework on data sharing and dissemination – Public Access to Environmental Information Directive and the Open Data Directive (see also 5.4.4). The objective of the INSPIRE Directive is to set up a European infrastructure for spatial data, promote sharing of public spatial data between public administrations and with the public, and improve availability and accessibility of spatial data relevant to environmental policies and activities. The INSPIRE Directive already governs active dissemination in particular in its Articles 13 and 14. Despite differences in scope to some extent, these requirements are overlapping with the active dissemination provisions in Articles 7 and 8 of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive. The active dissemination provisions in the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive date almost twenty years back and as a result lack some key technical terms, crucial for making available high quality data sets. There is also no reference to the INSPIRE Directive as the common instrument to implement the requirement on public authorities to actively disseminate environmental information to the public in a coherent way across Europe. This lack of synergy between the two Directives results in different approaches to make environmental data available impacting the effectiveness of both instruments. Although the objectives behind the INSPIRE Directive are still very relevant and further action is required at the EU level to address the identified obstacles, the legal framework can be improved in terms of effectiveness. To remain relevant and support the Green Deal ambitions by bringing environmental data into the Green Deal data space, the INSPIRE Directive and relevant provisions of the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive need to better consider evolving technology and information requirements. 5.2.Effectiveness 5.2.1.What progress has been made over time towards achieving the objectives and targets set out in INSPIRE in various Member States? There has been progress towards achieving the objectives set out in the INSPIRE Directive, even though a full implementation has not been yet achieved. Most progress was made on national coordination and removing obstacles for data sharing (with some Member States however lagging behind). Implementation difficulties persist as regards the following aspects: ·While overall, the quality of the documentation (metadata) of the identified spatial data is acceptable,there is room for further improvement to reach higher levels of conformity with the full metadata specification. ·Access to the spatial data for viewing and downloading is lagging behind with around half of the documented data sets were not yet accessible. ·Cross-border and pan-European usage of available spatial data is still difficult and time-consuming due to the heterogeneity of data offerings across countries and lack of data harmonisation. In 2017, the JRC report on the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive indicated that ‘the state of implementation still shows different levels of maturity across Member States’. The current status shows a similar picture (see Section 3). Although the change in the monitoring system introduced in 2019 makes full comparison of progress for each Member State over the years impossible, the following conclusions can be drawn from the latest monitoring cycle for reference year 2020: ·No Member State has yet achieved full implementation according to the implementation roadmap. ·On average, in 2020, 42% of datasets were available through both view and download services (NSi2), 50% were viewable (NSi2.1) and 50% were downloadable (NSi2.2). This means that around half of available data sets were not yet accessible across the EU Member States and EEA/EFTA countries. ·The analysis also shows low conformity of metadata. Average values of 59% and 55% of conformant metadata for spatial data sets and spatial data services, respectively, are low and suggest that data providers have not extensively used the INSPIRE Reference Validator before the monitoring and reporting process. ·Conformity of spatial data sets is also heterogeneous and low on average, with some countries providing few interoperable data sets. Overall, 50% of all listed data sets are in conformity with Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 as regards interoperability of spatial data sets. The interpretation of the results must, however, take into consideration that these indicators will in many cases never reach 100%, since majority of countries provide their national data sets (as-is data) in addition to the INSPIRE harmonised data sets because both data sets serve different purposes. ·The conformity of network services has quite improved since 2019, and at least in half of the countries it is relatively high. On the other hand, several countries still offer only a few interoperable network services. The overall average percentage of conformant network services (NSi4) amounted to 63%. Table 3 summarises the number of Member States falling under different implementation groups, in 2016 and 2020, for each implementation category: conformity of metadata; conformity of spatial datasets; accessibility of spatial datasets through view and download services; and conformity of network services. Depending on the performance results, the countries have been divided into four implementation groups, from Group I (top implementation) to Group IV (lowest level of implementation). Although this overview does not allow for strict conclusions, it gives a rough indication of the implementation progress. In all categories, except the conformity of metadata, the number of countries in the highest performance implementation group (i.e. Group I) increased in 2020 compared to the 2016 data, suggesting a positive progress towards achieving the objectives of the INSPIRE Directive. Conformity of metadata Conformity of spatial data sets Accessibility of spatial datasets through view and download services Conformity of network services 2016 2020 2016 2020 2016 2020 2016 2020 Group I: 80-100% 20 11 0 6 4 6 8 15 Group II: 55-79% 5 5 2 11 7 8 4 3 Group III: 30-54% 1 6 7 4 8 6 6 3 Group IV: 0-29% 1 5 18 6 8 7 9 6

Source: Country forms. When considering the self-declared results based on qualitative indicators measuring the progress in terms of coordination structures, data sharing arrangements and usage of the infrastructure, there has been certain progress recorded for some Member States ( Table 4 ). More countries recorded an improvement in terms of data sharing arrangements and usage of the infrastructure than effective coordination structures. No concrete progress in establishing effective governance structures, data sharing arrangements and usage of the infrastructure were recorded in a handful of Member States. The analysis indicates an overall positive trend; however, several Member States still need to step up their implementation efforts. It is important to consider that this qualitative analysis is based on Member State's self-assessments and is not supported by strict criteria or validation methods. Number of Member States Effective coordination Data sharing arrangements and usage of the infrastructure Improvement of the implementation status 3 8 No improvement of the implementation status 6 5 Fair level of implementation: Implementation of this provision is well advanced or (nearly) completed. Outstanding issues are minor and can be addressed easily. 18 14 Total 27 27 Source: Country forms. 5.2.2.Is the progress made in line with the initial expectations and the INSPIRE implementation roadmap? The implementation of the INSPIRE Directive still shows implementation gaps. As of 2021, most of the implementation deadlines according to the INSPIRE implementation roadmap are in the past. The level of implementation is uneven across the European Union, with many Member States lagging behind. There are still challenges related to governance structures and coordination of implementation. The results also stems from different institutional and political set ups (federal vs. centralised State, larger vs. smaller Member States, etc.). Overall, the progress made so far as regards the provision of INSPIRE-compliant metadata, data and data services is not in line with the initial expectations and the INSPIRE implementation roadmap. A detailed overview of the INSPIRE implementation milestones is provided in the INSPIRE roadmap (see Annex 4, Part A). The major implementations steps of the INSPIRE Directive implementation are the following: (1)set up coordination structures and adopt and implement legal measures to remove procedural obstacles to the sharing of spatial data; (2)identify their spatial data relevant to environmental policies and policies and actions with an environmental impact according to themes listed in the annexes of the Directive; (3)document the spatial data so that they can be accessed on the internet together with information on aspects such as their source, geographical coverage, quality and conditions of use, in line with the metadata specifications; (4)implement interoperable online services allowing the discovery, visualisation and download of spatial data; (5)gradually organise and publish the spatial data according to common data models for greater interoperability and improved productivity. The implementation progress as regards the steps 2, 3, 4 and 5 is covered in the overview of the current situation (See chapter 3) and identifies four implementation groups of countries based on the INSPIRE indicator results in 2020, from the least to the best performing. When it comes to the availability of spatial data sets and services, the progress cannot be measured as no quantitative objectives have been set for this indicator. The evaluation demonstrated that Member States do not have the same number of data sets and services at national or regional level (see 5.2.3). Furthermore, several Member States reduced the number of spatial data sets in the recent years, for example, by combining several local and regional data sets into national ones. Thus, the total number of data sets and services available cannot be considered as an evidence on implementation maturity. The progress can however be more effectively measured for other INSPIRE indicators, expressed in percentages. The main finding when comparing the current state of play and the initial implementation roadmap is that implementation for all Member States is still lagging behind the initial implementation schedule. Most of the actions in the roadmap should have been achieved by the end of 2020, however, the monitoring data shows that this is not the case (see 5.2.1). The barriers to the full implementation are described in more detail under 5.2.5. 5.2.3.Is the geographical coverage of implementation consistent with the Directive's objectives? The evaluation showed that conclusions in terms of the geographical coverage of the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive are difficult to draw as the datasets could not be verified individually in the framework of this evaluation. When considering the interoperability requirements stemming from the INSPIRE Directive, the current geographical coverage is not deemed optimal as there are significant discrepancies in the number of datasets across Member States, their geographical scope (national, regional, local) and their content.

When looking at the number of metadata records, downloadable datasets and viewable datasets available on the INSPIRE Geoportal at national level and regional level, and their geographical distribution ( Table 5 ) it can be observed that Member States offer a varying amount of INSPIRE-relevant datasets. For instance, while Germany, Italy (and France in the past) have offered several thousands of datasets, other Member States have only made less than 100 datasets available. France reduced drastically the number of datasets available in the recent years. Since 2016, France has rationalised its offering with a focus on making datasets available that have a national coverage and were listed as environmental data priorities. In 2016, France offered 29,700 spatial datasets for which metadata existed and has reduced the number to 214 data sets in 2020. Number of Member States Number of datasets available Meta data records Downloadable data Sets Viewable Data Sets below 100 5 15 17 between 100 and 299 14 7 5 between 300 and 699 6 4 4 above 10,000 2 1 1 TOTAL 27 27 27 Source: Based on the data from INSPIRE Geoportal, July 2020 There are more than twice as many regional metadata records available on the INSPIRE Geoportal than national metadata records ( Table 6 ). Under the assumption made that regional data are more heterogeneous than the national data, it is unlikely that the current geographical coverage allows yet for a good pan-European interoperability as there is too much heterogeneity in the number and content of spatial datasets made available by different Member States. Data sets National spatial scope coverage Regional spatial scope coverage Total number of metadata records 5,459 13,747 Downloadable datasets 2,131 1,948 Viewable datasets 2,308 2,828 Source: Based on the data from INSPIRE Geoportal, July 2020 It is important to note when considering the above observations that INSPIRE does not set the requirement to collect new data, nor sets specific requirements on the scale or the quality of the spatial data provided. This means that INSPIRE was intended to operate with a legacy of heterogeneous datasets that have been produced for the purpose of different national and regional contexts. Full interoperability can therefore not be expected based on the current framework. 5.2.4.To what extent does the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in the Member States build further on the obligations of Public Access to Environmental Information Directive (specifically the provisions under Articles 7 and 8 under the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive)? The evaluation could not identify with precision to what extent the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in the Member States is effectively building on the obligations under the Public Access to Environmental Information Directive (specifically the provisions under Articles 7 on the dissemination of environmental information and 8 on the quality of environmental information). The two Directives have overlapping scopes to a certain extent, stemming from the requirements of the Aarhus Convention, Article 5 (see 5.4.4) and are often implemented in parallel, especially because of the common requirements of active dissemination. In many countries, different public organisations are legally responsible for providing the environmental information, for providing (geo)data and for implementing INSPIRE. This might result in several separate portals to provide the environmental information, the legal base, the national implementation of that legislation and spatial data under INSPIRE. These portals are not always interlinked which may result in additional administrative burden and could show a lack of coordination between the different actors managing the two instruments. 5.2.5.Which main factors have contributed to – respectively stood in the way of achieving these objectives? The evaluation found no new barriers to the implementation and the use of INSPIRE compared to the ones identified in previous evaluations. The table below lists the common types of obstacles already identified by Member States in the midterm evaluation. From the most identified barriers to the least identified barriers were: 1) technical barriers, 2) licencing and sharing barriers, 3) knowledge barriers, 4) legal barriers, 5) financial and organisational barriers to the same extent. The technical requirements of the INSPIRE Directive result in different levels of complexity and some specifications no longer correspond to the current technical standards and user needs. One example is the default use of the GML format that is considered cumbersome and not fit for purpose. Technical complexity and over-specification have a negative impact on resources needed to implement the spatial data infrastructure and its possible use and is considered a barrier to its full deployment. However, in other areas lack of specifications have also given rise to problems. The INSPIRE Directive leaves it up to the Member States to decide on the licensing conditions for data access. This has resulted in heterogeneous licensing schemes, terminology and reuse conditions throughout the Member States, which makes it difficult for users to assess to what extent data can be reused for cross-border and pan-European use cases. Several Member States provide INSPIRE datasets and services as a standalone activity that is only marginally linked to the national infrastructure, often supplying access to only a subset of the rich spatial data available in national catalogues. This is to minimise the burden of setting up network services and making the data interoperable according to INSPIRE rules that are not always supported by off the shelf software solutions, or not aligned with requirements adopted at the national level. Cross-border implementation is also hampered by the different ways Member States describe the same data. Differences in description and quality are a challenge to creating a uniform picture across Member States resulting in a patchwork of data available in the INSPIRE infrastructure making it difficult to achieve pan-European coverage for specific themes. This can be remediated through extra efforts by the community involved to specify and agree more precisely the common data models. This has been done, for instance, by the marine community whereby over 100 institutions have agreed common standards for distributing geospatial data according to INSPIRE-based FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) principles through the EMODnet initiative. Some discretion in application of data specifications should be allowed to support these community initiatives. The evaluation further showed ( Figure 2 ) that the main barriers to the use of spatial data from the point of view of the users are firstly the technical access to data (63%), then the level of data (47%), the format (43%) and the quality of data (38%) available. Cost of access (19%), technical access to metadata (18%) and quality of metadata (9%) are less considered as barriers.

According to the public consultation ( Figure 3 ) finding data is experienced as easy by more than half of the respondents, while access and reuse of data and services is still experienced difficult by two-third of respondents. Source: All respondents, public consultation May-July 2021, Questions 11-17. 5.2.6.To what extent is INSPIRE used for reporting under the environmental acquis? The evaluation shows that even though challenges remained for Member States, in particular considering the harmonisation process, there has been progress in the use of INSPIRE for reporting under the environmental acquis. INSPIRE was indeed designed to optimise data transfer and processing through the harmonisation requirements, as Member States rely on many different networks of thematic and regional data providers for environmental reporting. The midterm evaluation provided an example from the MDI-DE (Marine Dateninfrastruktur Deutschland) project, as example of an infrastructure dedicated to that purpose. The JRC has undertaken several pilot initiatives together with Member States to foster the streamlining of regulatory reporting requirement and INSPIRE provisions e.g. Air Quality e-Reporting where real-time air quality data is made available by the Member States. The different projects experienced difficulties linked to the disciplinary nature of the endeavour. In many cases, the communities responsible for reporting under the environmental acquis do not have the technical expertise required to implement INSPIRE provisions, and the INSPIRE experts lack knowledge of the thematic domain. The key factors identified for successful projects were a ‘balanced set of experts with good domain knowledge and where either the complexity of the topic was feasible to address or where the data work had a long tradition’. In more operational terms, the 2019 report on environmental information systems (EIS) indicated that in the question ‘Is there a link between the EIS and the national INSPIRE portal, is the monitoring data found via the EIS and provided through INSPIRE?’ Only in 15% of the evaluated Member States and regions declared that the link between the EIS and INSPIRE was properly provided. In 38% of the cases, reference to INSPIRE was made within the EIS, but no links were found, in 47% of the evaluated Member States and regions there is no reference and no links between the EIS and INSPIRE were found. This suggest a lack of connection between the environmental information platforms and INSPIRE and an incomplete integration resulting in different incompatible platforms and approaches for sharing environmental data. Overall, Member States are satisfied with ongoing efforts in aligning INSPIRE and reporting requirements in EU environmental legislation and they are positive about the added value of INSPIRE for reporting when it will be fully implemented. Directives such as the Air Quality Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Industrial Emissions Directive and Bathing Water Directive are examples where the alignment process has already been achieved and has led to better reuse of spatial data for policy implementation, and decreased implementation burden. National environment authorities, which are in many cases responsible for the reporting, find that spatial data made available by INSPIRE is used in the reporting under the environmental acquis especially the priority datasets identified for INSPIRE reporting. However, there are still some challenges experienced, as data cannot always be fully used by reporting authorities because it does not meet the reporting requirements (not recent enough, different content). 5.2.7.What are the qualitative and quantitative effects of INSPIRE on the policymaking users in the field of environment in Member States? A general remark is that the evaluation gathered some examples and relevant information about use of INSPIRE and the evidence-base is considered as not robust enough. It is therefore difficult to conclude firmly on this important aspect of the Directive and the presented results are likely under-estimating the actual use as a result. Positive side effects like better organisation of the governance in particular between regional and national levels may also be under-estimated. The above also apply to policymaking users as the information contained in the current status form is not specific and mostly quantitative (e.g. examples and numbers of geoportals in use in the Member State). The main finding is that outside some examples of use by policy makers, which are also data providers, it was difficult to quantify the use and effect on policy making in general, while in some specific areas there was a good uptake of the INSPIRE Directive. Interviews with Member States revealed a mixed picture when it comes to measuring the effect of the Directive on policy making in the field of environment. Spatial data is considered an important source of information for the implementation of environmental policy, but Member States are not always able to provide precise information about the use or users of data. The reason behind is that it is not specifically monitored or because users are also the data providers for their own needs (mainly at local, regional, national level) and do not need to use the datasets in INSPIRE formats. It was also raised that the INSPIRE Directive is not yet fully implemented and as such, the effects cannot be observed yet. Furthermore, it was observed that in many Member States more and richer non-harmonised data sets, that better serve the needs of national and regional policy makers, are being made available through the national infrastructure. In addition, when these Member States are providing separate INSPIRE datasets and services, they usually pay less attention to their usability. For example, INSPIRE services may be set up to serve huge amounts of datasets or layers, or the services may not be actively quality-controlled or monitored. This makes them difficult to use in any practical application. To increase the usefulness of the INSPIRE Directive for policymakers active in sectors or policies that are relevant for the environment (transport, energy marine etc.) further alignment with sectoral requirements would be needed. Pilot projects over the last 5 years report that alignment is a long process and technical difficulties arise in relation to data quality (for instance, frequency of data collection: annual data versus real-time data for traffic information or spatial accuracy). However, it is also important to emphasize that the INSPIRE Directive was reported by Member States to be a driver for a better organisation of the governance in particular between regional and national levels. INSPIRE has driven the development of portals and centralised access to the datasets in most Member States. In the surveys for targeted sectors (agriculture, marine, spatial data, environment) 42% of respondents considered that the INSPIRE Directive contributed to a large extent to access, exchange and reuse of geospatial data across public sector organisations. Another third (32%) considered that it contributed to this to some extent ( Figure 4 ). Source: All respondents, Targeted surveys (combined) April-May 2021, Question 5

5.2.8.What are the qualitative and quantitative effects of INSPIRE on users active in economic sectors influencing environment? The main finding on qualitative and quantitative effects of INSPIRE on users active in economic sectors influencing environment is that information on use and users is too scarce to provide a clear view of the effects of INSPIRE for these. Studies and stakeholders involved in the INSPIRE implementation (at European Union and Member States levels) seem to be focused on making data available, without identifying upstream the precise effects on each type of users or monitoring how data are used, by whom and what for. As far as uses are concerned, reporting and planning purposes rank first. This is coherent with the fact that the first users of spatial data are national / local authorities or agencies. The availability of data and the way data are, or could be used have often been assessed but there is no precise or comprehensive information on effects of availability of the data on the users in different sectors. The JRC carried out two projects in the past years to assess how geospatial data made available by the Member States, as a result of INSPIRE, can be used to tackle energy efficiency or mobility issues. The two projects start from a very specific need from a final user to identify information needs for policy implementation. INSPIRE data are seen as a means to achieve high-level objectives but it is not indicated what effects can be identified. It is therefore challenging to establish a direct link between the availability of data as a result of the implementation of INSPIRE and the positive effects on users in economic sectors. 18 Member States and EFTA/EEA countries indicated in their country forms that better overview, discoverability, availability, accessibility of data were among the main direct benefits of INSPIRE (see 5.3.1). Targeted surveys showed that respondents think th