Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on:the Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision No 1719/1999/EC on a series of guidelines, including the identification of projects of common interest, for trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA), andthe Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision No 1720/1999/EC, adopting a series of actions and measures in order to ensure interoperability of and access to trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA)
Date: 2002-01-16
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: access to information, administrative cooperation, electronic mail, exchange of information, telecommunications, trans-European network

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Official Journal of the European Communities

8.4.
In the area of regulations, customs and duties, the
Commission should submit, within four years, a series of
practical measures to the Council and the Parliament, with a
view to facilitating the development of
inland waterway
transport, as suggested in the white paper:

— removal of unjustifiable charges collected by sea ports for
any assistance provided, so as not to put river transport
and combined inland waterway and sea shipping at a
disadvantage vis à vis competitors;

— abolition of the special charges levied on new boats as
part of the ‘old for new’ rule that finances the scrapping

Brussels, 16 January 2002.

C 80/21

the 2003

from 2002, without waiting for

fund,
deadline;

— implementation of a system of customs controls on
departure and arrival of boats only, to facilitate combined
inland-waterway and sea traffic, as traffic can now be
monitored reliably via the Galileo programme;

— establishment of

single Community

certificate,
enabling bargemen to travel on all European inland
waterways,
following the example of heavy goods
vehicle drivers.

a

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Göke FRERICHS

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on:

— the ‘Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending
Decision No 1719/1999/EC on a series of guidelines, including the identification of projects
of common interest, for trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of data
between administrations (IDA)’, and

— the ‘Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending
Decision No 1720/1999/EC, adopting a series of actions and measures in order to ensure
interoperability of and access to trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of
data between administrations (IDA)’

(2002/C 80/05)

On 12 November 2001, the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under
Article 156 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposals.

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for
preparing the Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 18 December 2001. The
rapporteur was Mr Bernabei.

At its 387th plenary session (meeting of 16 January 2002), the Economic and Social Committee
unanimously adopted the following opinion.

1. The IDA II programme: evaluation and proposed

amendments

28 May 1998 annulling Decision No 468/95/EC that had
formalised the Commission’s 1993 proposal, on which the
Committee had issued an opinion (1).

The IDA programme originated in 1993-1995, but it
1.1.
has had prolonged periods of difficulty owing to the absence
of a legal basis, following the Court of Justice’s judgment of

(1) OJ C 249 of 13.9.1993.

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1.2.
The IDA programme’s new legal basis stems from
Article 156 of the EC Treaty, on trans-European networks, as
amended by the Maastricht Treaty. The two decisions relating
to the programme, No 1719/1999/EC and No 1720/1999/EC,
were however only adopted on 12 July 1999 and came into
force on 3 August 1999, following their publication in the
Official Journal.

1.6.
In its opinion on Decision No 1719/1999/EC and
Decision No 1720/1999/EC, adopted on 29 April 1998 (1),
the Committee approved the general thrust of the IDA II
programme, stressing in particular the need for coherence,
coordination and cooperation, confidentiality, the protection
of personal information, and training in the various aspects of
network management.

The IDA II programme measures must therefore be
1.3.
considered to be at an early stage, although some of them
began life in previous years. The previous absence of an
appropriate legal basis led to uncertainties regarding finance,
management and planning; and this has delayed development
and reduced the major potential benefits.

1.4. With reference to the evaluation report, the Committee
would stress the need to secure greater stability, certainty and
continuity of action for the IDA programme. In this respect, it
welcomes the Commission’s draft decisions as a step towards
establishing a multi-annual planning system and remodelling
the programme on more solid foundations, more closely linked
to the e-Europe programme. It should also be coordinated and
in synergy with the relevant measures of the Community R&D
framework programme, the TEN-Telecom initiatives and other
sectoral networks (OSNs) not directly concerned by IDA
projects.

The main aim of the current IDA programme is ‘to
1.5.
promote the electronic exchange of
information between
administrations, in order to support the functioning of the
internal market and the implementation of a wide range of
Community decisions’, by means of:

— projects of common interest, with the establishment
of operational, interoperable, trans-European telematic
networks between Member State/regional administrations
and the Community institutions, enabling the secure,
efficient and effective interchange of information, to the
benefit of end users and supporting the policies and
activities of economic and monetary union and the
Community, as well as the interinstitutional Community
decision-making process;

— horizontal actions and measures to ensure: inter- and
intra-sectoral interoperability; convergence towards com-
mon interfaces; the promotion of direct access for the
public and for economic and social operators, whenever
possible, to information of an administrative nature,
helping to reduce the administrative burden at national
and Union level; the dissemination of best practice and
innovative solutions.

According to the evaluation report,

1.7.
that
the Community measures are divided between two separate
decisions clouds an overall view of the programme.

the fact

Furthermore,

in the above mentioned report,

1.8.
the
experts highlight the need for a stable and certain financial,
management and planning framework; a single catalogue of
IDA services; a simplified user guide; a substantial reduction in
the size and complexity of procedures and documents; periodic
reports on the results obtained from current and previous
funding; the identification of measurable and quantifiable
objectives; synergy with relevant Community research activi-
ties, with the TEN-Telecom networks, e-Europe initiatives and
other sectoral networks (OSNs) external to IDA; and the
dissemination of results and surveys on user satisfaction.

The Committee thinks that the Commission’s proposed
1.9.
and
amendments
No 1720/1999/EC meet at least some of the demands and
issues raised. These amendments fall into three categories:

to Decisions No

1719/1999/EC

— legal and political obligations: changing the procedure
for the Telematics between Administrations Committee
(TAC) in Council Decision No 468/1999/EC of 28 June
1999; extending IDA II to Malta and Turkey; making
general IDA services available to applicant countries and
third countries, but at their expense and providing such a
step is necessary for implementing a Community policy;

— practical measures: providing a financial reference for the
implementation of Community measures planned for the
2002-2004 period, i.e. EUR 39,8 million for the guide-
lines part and EUR 34,2 million for interoperability;
improving the dissemination of best practice;

— adjustments: giving consideration to new Community
initiatives, e.g. by linking up to the e-Europe initiative and
the ‘government online’ chapter of its action plan; adding

(1) OJ C 214 of 10.7.1998, p. 33.

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C 80/23

new areas of activity for the development of telematic
networks, such as justice, education and immigration.

The Committee welcomes the results obtained by
1.10.
in support of
IDA, as presented in the evaluation report,
networks, especially in the areas of public procurement
(SIMAP), health and the environment (EIONET, EUPHIN and
EUDRA), company statistics (SERT) and social security (TESS)
where the benefits to end users are most obvious. Further
examples are the horizontal projects, such as TESTA — Trans-
European Services for Telematics between Administrations,
whose objective is interoperability and the convergence of
networks into a common interface, CIRCA — Communication
and Information Resource Centre Administrator, which
develops common tools used by over 25 Commission depart-
ments and other European institutions and by hundreds of
interest groups, SECLEG — Security and Legal Pilot Projects,
which offers common security policy solutions for various
sectoral networks, and DSIS — Distributed Statistical Infor-
mation Services, aimed at developing a secure, standardised
and interoperable system for electronic data collection.

2. General comments

In principle, the Committee approves the changes
2.1.
suggested by the Commission, although it believes that
they could be broader and better tailored to the ultimate
beneficiaries of the programme, namely the Community’s
public, companies and economic and social operators, not
least in view of EU enlargement.

The Committee underlines that the programme’s plan-
2.2.
ning framework would be more stable and certain if
it
coincided with the Community’s 2000-2006 financial perspec-
tive. This would also secure certainty and stability for activities
in the later stages of the programme: the fact that it is out of
step could hamper four-yearly projections beyond 2004.

2.3.
The Committee understands the procedural and mana-
gerial reasons for having two sets of Community measures for
the same programme, but it believes that there should be a
single framework. It therefore calls for initiatives to make the
measures more comprehensible and more coherent.

The applicant countries’

in the pro-
2.4.
gramme should be more systematic and less restricted, in the
same way as for other Community programmes such as the

involvement

R&D framework programme. This latter programme contains
elements that could generate multiplying effects in combi-
nation with the IDA programme, in terms of the development
of networks of excellence in the European research area and,
more specifically, integrated research projects centring on the
information society.

2.5.
The adjustments needed to link up with the e-Europe
initiative and its action plan should be supplemented with
measures that provide for synergy and coordination with other
Community actions and programmes, such as the R&D
framework programme,
to provide
services on broadband networks, the TEN-Telecom, RISI e
ISIRIS initiatives at regional level, the networks for companies
and for innovation, and, more generally, the non-IDA telematic
networks existing at EU level, as well as external technical
cooperation and assistance programmes that can facilitate
participation in the IDA programme.

the GEANT network,

2.6.
The procedures for access to IDA should be clearer,
more transparent and simpler. The users’ guide should include
frequently asked questions (FAQ), and the criteria for the
selection, evaluation and monitoring of results should be
clearly stated and explained in advance, not least to facilitate
the dissemination and cross-fertilisation of best practice.

2.7.
In order to secure the highest possible level of trans-
parency in the measures taken, the end users should be more
closely and systematically involved in the IDA programme
and individual projects, both through appropriate systematic
consultations and through the establishment of a platform for
dialogue, information, and the evaluation and development of
projects and their results.

2.7.1.
This dialogue platform could be a virtual one, built
using appropriate telematic tools, such as those developed for
the horizontal projects.

To involve the dialogue platform elements efficiently
2.7.2.
and effectively, the right yardsticks will have to be devised for
assessing the functional capacity of the solutions developed
and mapping their evolution over time (e.g. number of user
organisations assisted, number of transactions/month, number
of service failures/month, economic value of the transactions,
etc.).

2.8.
The Committee also believes that the development of
common tools and services within IDA should be catalogued
in a regularly updated list and a single register of horizontal
projects and their results, thus giving definition and continuity
to the action of disseminating best practice, as intended in the
amendments proposed by the Commission.

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On this note,

2.8.1.
the Committee would stress the
importance of establishing dedicated budget headings in order
to promote IDA tools and services, not only among the
administrations and institutions concerned, but also among
economic and social operators and, more broadly, the general
public.

2.9.
The Commission proposes extending the fields of
action to the sectors of justice, education, continuing training
and immigration. Security, privacy, research and mobility of
researchers, regional development and decentralisation should
also be included.

3. Specific comments

3.1.
The state of development of telecommunications tech-
nologies nowadays enables the widespread adoption of virtual
network techniques for the creation of infrastructures that can
respond to the requirements of the various IDA 2 projects. It
would not therefore seem necessary to set up dedicated
networks using traditional leased lines. Use can however be
made of the many existing infrastructure options, turning to
dedicated circuits only in situations where specific transit and
reply times are required.

2.9.1.
The Committee thinks that common interest projects
should be set up in areas such as consumer protection,
enlargement and economic and social cohesion, the industrial
sectors, transport, education, scientific research and techno-
logical
innovation, and interaction and interoperability
between the various tiers of government in relation to the
decentralisation process.

3.1.1.
This approach secures higher levels of service avail-
ability, greater reliability, better security and much lower
overall costs than dedicated physical lines, and allows broader
objectives to be pursued for the same level of available financial
resources.

3.2.

Proposed amendments to decision No 1719/1999/EC:

2.9.2.
Here the Committee would stress that the changes
proposed should constitute the first positive step towards an
IDA programme that is more tailored towards the requirements
of the end users, i.e. the public, including disabled and elderly
people, and economic and social operators, who are the true
end users of the Community measures in question and who as
such should be more involved in both the definition of the
horizontal and sectoral projects and their evaluation in terms
of consumer satisfaction and the Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI) guidelines.

— in Article 10(3) and (4), the Committee suggests replacing
‘at their own costs’, with ‘free of charge, providing there
is no cost to the IDA programme’.

Reason: the original text could suggest that the countries
mentioned must carry a share of the cost; the proposed
change makes it clear that the costs to be borne are only
the operating costs for activities within their responsi-
bility.

2.9.3.
Appropriate solutions to the problem of security and
data confidentiality must be found for the various beneficiaries
(administrations and institutions, companies and the public).
On this note, the Committee would refer to the opinion
adopted at the plenary session on 28 and 29 November 2001
on the Communication from the Commission to the Council,
the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee
and the Committee of the Regions on network and information
security: proposal for a European policy approach (1).

2.10.
As the representative of the economic and social
elements of organised civil society, the Committee should be
fully involved in IDA developments, not least by being duly
consulted on the two-yearly reports to the Council and the
European Parliament.

— in the Annex, section B, point 10, the Committee suggests
adding ‘continuing training, disabilities’ after ‘education’.

Reason: telematic networks are an extremely useful tool
not only for education, but also for continuing training
and access for disabled and elderly people.

3.3.

Proposed amendments to decision No 1720/1999/EC:

— the Committee proposes adding the following to
Article 10(3):
those initiatives of
‘and shall support
individual administrations that are deemed especially
effective and/or innovative, in order to raise awareness of
what they have achieved in the sphere of the IDA 2
project’.

(1) COM(2001) 298 final — OJ C 48, 21.2.2002.

Reason: to promote the dissemination of best practice by
sparking positive competition between administrations.

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— in Article 14(3) and (4), the Committee suggests replacing
‘at their own costs’, with ‘free of charge, providing there
is no cost to the IDA programme’.

4.2.
The Committee would stress the importance of an
effective EU certification authority, in order to secure adequate
levels of security for access to and the exchange of information.

Reason: the original text could suggest that the countries
mentioned must carry a share of the cost; the proposed
change makes it clear that the costs to be borne are only
the operating costs for activities within their responsi-
bility.

4. Conclusions

The Committee would stress

4.1.
the importance of
strengthening the IDA programme to benefit not only adminis-
trations and institutions, but also the public, companies and,
more generally, organised civil society, with a view to ensuring
greater economic and social cohesion of the Union and
boosting European competitiveness, in accordance with the
conclusions of the Lisbon and Stockholm summits.

Brussels, 16 January 2002.

4.3.
The Committee would stress the importance of ensur-
ing maximum visibility, accessibility and interoperability for
the networks promoted by the IDA programme, for benefit of
the end users, not least given the principles of transparency
that are supposed to govern the institutional system at
European level and in the Member States.

The Committee believes that, in order to facilitate use
4.4.
of the IDA networks, initiatives must be taken at various levels
to provide for the continuing training of users and to open up
the above-mentioned network infrastructure for the purposes
of continuing training.

4.5.
Lastly, the Committee feels that given the sensitive
nature of the data processed, it is essential to guarantee a high
level of network security, by using appropriate safety nets,
centrally, in the Member States and, in future, in the applicant
countries.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Göke FRERICHS