COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Revision of the European Interoperability Framework - Synopsis report of the consultation activities Accompanying the document Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions European Interoperability Framework – Implementation Strategy
Date: 2017-03-23
Institutions: Directorate-General for Digital Services, European Commission
Subjects: EU programme, administrative cooperation, cooperation policy, digital technology, electronic government, exchange of information, information technology applications, public authorities, single market

EN 

   EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 23.3.2017  SWD(2017) 113 final   COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Revision of the European Interoperability Framework - Synopsis report of the consultation activities Accompanying the document Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions European Interoperability Framework – Implementation Strategy {COM(2017) 134 final} {SWD(2017) 112 final}  
 
 
Contents 

1. 

2. 

3. 

Scope and purpose of the consultation activities ......................................................... 3 

Respondents’ profile .................................................................................................... 4 

Results of the consultation activities ............................................................................ 5 

Figure 1 Number of answers received (per stakeholder group) .............................................................. 4 

TABLE OF FIGURES 

2 

 
 
 
 
 
‘The information and views set out in this section are those of  the stakeholders consulted 
during the different consultation activities and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion 
of the Commission and its services. 

© European Union, 2016’ 

This  report  aims  to  present  the  key  findings  of  the  European  Commission’s  consultation  to 
assess  the  impact  of  revising  the  European  Interoperability  Framework  (EIF)  including 
the need to develop a strategy/action plan similar to the current  European Interoperability 
Strategy  (EIS).  More  specifically,  it  explains  the  scope  and  purpose  of  the  consultation 
process, describes respondents’ profiles and presents the results of the consultation activities. 

of 

details 

The 
https://ec.europa.eu/isa2/consultations/results/result_impact-assessment-for-the-revision-of-
the-eis-eifl_en. 

contributions 

received 

found 

can 

the 

be 

here: 

1. 

SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THE CONSULTATION ACTIVITIES 

The  Commission  ran  a  12-week  open  public  consultation  on  the  revision  of  the  EIF  from 
6 April 2016  to  29 June 2016.  The  consultation,  translated  into  three  languages,1  targeted  i) 
citizens,  ii)  businesses  and  private  organisations,  iii)  public  administrations,  and  iv)  what  is 
collectively  referred  to  as  ‘academia’  in  the  remainder  of  the  report  (research  centres 
academic  institutions,  standardisation  organisations  and  businesses  supplying  services  to 
public administrations). 

The consultation process also included three targeted consultations, namely: 

 

 

 

targeted  consultation  with  the  ISA/ISA²  Committee/Coordination  Group  members2  – 
referred  in  this  document  as  ‘Member  States’  or  ‘Member  State  representatives’ 
(21 December 2015 – 18 January 2016); 

targeted consultation with Commission departments (31 March 2016 – 9 May 2016); 

targeted consultation with EU institutions/agencies (18 April 2016 – 27 May 2016). 

In addition to these, stakeholders were consulted through:  

  dedicated workshops/webinars; 

  meetings with: 

o 

the  Member  States’  representatives  to  ISA/ISA²  (including  as  part  of  the 
ISA/ISA² Committee and Coordination group meetings);  

o 

international standardisation bodies (OMG, W3C, ETSI, IEEE);  

o 

targeted experts.  

1 English, French and German. 
2 ISA and its successor ISA² are Commission programmes dedicated to interoperability in the public sector. 

3 

 
 
                                                            
Working  groups  of  Commission  departments  were  also  established  early  in  the  process  and 
have been regularly consulted. 

2. 

RESPONDENTS’ PROFILE 

In  total,  233  replies  were  received  during  the  consultations,  as  displayed  in  in  the  figure 
below. 

Figure 1 Number of answers received (per stakeholder group)3  

54 stakeholders from 3 different target groups replied to the targeted consultations: 

  Representatives from 14 EU and EEA Member States (AT, BE, BG, DE, DK, EL, HR, 

IS, NL, PL, PT, SI, SK, UK); 

  28  Commission  officials,  representing  28  units  from  17  different  Commission 
directorates-general  (AGRI,  CNECT,  COMP,  DEVCO,  DGT,  ECHO,  EMPL,  ENV, 
FISMA, HOME, JUST, MARE, MOVE, OLAF, OP, RTD and TAXUD); 

  12  other  EU  institutions/agencies:  the  European  Centre  for  the  Development  of 
Vocational Training (Cedefop), the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European 
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the European Court of 
Justice  (CJEU),  the  European  Maritime  Safety  Agency  (EMSA),  the  European 
Training  Foundation  (ETF),  the  European  Food  Safety  Authority  (EFSA),  the 
European  Parliament,  Eurojust,  Frontex,  the  European  Railway  Agency  (ERA)  and 
Europol. 

179 stakeholders from 4 different target groups replied to the open public consultations: 

  31 public administrations from 16 Member States: BE (1), CZ (2), DE (1), EE (1), EL 
(2), ES (4), FR (2), HR (1), HU (2), IT (1), NL (4), PT (1), SK (2), SE (3), SI (1), UK 

3 The stakeholder group ‘businesses and private organisations’ has been split to distinguish between those which 
have been registered in the Transparency Register and those which have not, in accordance with the Better 
Regulation Guidelines. 

4 

 
 
 
                                                            
(1), plus 1 from Norway and 1 from Turkey; 

  113 citizens from 19 Member States: AT (4), BE (4), DE (6), EL (3), ES (11), FI (2), 
FR (21), HR (1), IE (3), IT (13), LU (1), NL (7), PL (8), PT (2), RO (2), SE (4), SI (1), 
SK (1), UK (17), plus 1 citizen from Norway and 1 from Moldova; 

  13  businesses/private  organisations  established  in  9 Member  States,  registered  in  the 
Transparency register: AT (1), BE (3), DE (2), ES (1), FR (2), HU (1), IT (1), SE (1), 
UK (1); 

  4  businesses/private  organisations  established  in  4 Member  States,  not  registered  in 

the Transparency register: AT (1), BG (1), DE (1), IT (1); 

  18 answers  from academia based in  13 Member States: AT (3), BE (1), BG (1), DE 
(2), EL (1), FR (1), HU (1), IT (1), NL (1), PT(1), SE (1), SK (1), UK (1), plus 1 from 
Iceland and 1 international organisation (OECD). 

Most of the stakeholders consulted (148 respondents, 77 %) tended to consider themselves as 
aware of the EIS, EIF and their respective content, at least partially.4 

3. 

RESULTS OF THE CONSULTATION ACTIVITIES 

The  remainder  of  this  section  summarises  the  findings  of  the  consultations  for  each 
stakeholder group,5 starting with the overall needs and problems faced by stakeholders over 
interoperability, and then focusing more specifically on the EIF and EIS. 

Assessment of needs and problems over interoperability 

Answers show a real need for digital public services at national level and, to a lesser extent, 
across  borders.  When  available,  digital  public  services  are  not  always  user-centric, 

interoperable or fully digitised. 

Most citizens6 use the digital public services provided by their country’s administrations and 
tend  to  prefer  using  these  over  other  means7  (e.g.  post,  phone  calls  or  physical  presence). 
Similarly,  the  majority  of  businesses/private  organisations  considered  interoperability  with 
public administrations at national level to be ‘very important’ or ‘rather important’.8  

By  contrast,  most  respondents  from  the  citizens  group  (72  respondents,  64 %)  declared  not 
having had the need to interact with public administration of a country other than their own in 

4  The  question  was  not  addressed  during  the  targeted  consultation  to  Member  States.  This  target  group  is 
therefore not included in the results displayed. 
5 The results from the consultation targeted at Commission departments are excluded from this report. 
6 In this section, ‘Citizens’ refers to the 113 citizens who replied to the open public consultation. 
7 A total of 48 citizens (42 %) declared that they ‘occasionally’ used the digital public services provided by their 
country’s  administrations,  43  respondents  (38 %)  did  so  ‘frequently’  and  8  respondents  (7 %)  ‘always’  used 
them during the last year. 
8 In this report, ‘businesses/private organisations’ refers to all 17 businesses/private organisations who replied to 
the open public consultation. The views of the registered and unregistered businesses/private organisations will 
be presented separately when applicable. 

5 

 
 
                                                            
the  last  year  and  a  majority  (64  respondents,  57 %)  never  used  cross-border  public  services 
during that period. 

In any case, improvements are required in order for digital public services, whether available 
at national level or across borders, to better meet citizens’ and businesses’ expectations. For 
instance,  43  citizens  (38 %),  13  members  of  academia9  (72 %)  and  1010  businesses/private 
organisations (59 %) agreed that public services should become fully digitised, so that citizens 
and businesses can interact with the public administration electronically instead of using other 
channels.  Businesses/private  organisations  (1011  respondents,  59 %)  and  academia  (11 
respondents, 61 %) also highlighted the need for common standards and specification to better 
access public services. 

Public administrations consider interoperability at national level, and, to a lesser extent, cross-
border interoperability as a priority. However, because of certain problems interoperability is 

not being properly implemented. 

Interoperability at national level appears to be a priority for the vast majority of Member State 
representatives, EU institutions/agencies12 and public administrations13 (94 %). Cross-border 
interoperability  is  also  a  priority  for  the  majority  of  those  target  groups  (70 %).  However, 
7 Member  States  (50 %)  and  10  public  administrations  (42 %14)  considered  that  citizens, 
businesses and/or administrations in their country have a limited need for digital cross-border 
public  services.  In  addition,  13  public  administrations  (54 %14)  mentioned  that  cross-border 
interoperability was not a priority in their country’s political agenda. This was assessed as one 
of  the  main  problems  impeding  interoperability  in  14  of  the  answers  provided  by  academia 
(78 %). 

Stakeholders identified additional problems on interoperability at national level and/or across 
borders. The following were mentioned by the majority of at least one target group: 

 

 

 

 

 

the lack of resources (financial and human) for implementing interoperability; 

the absence of a single binding policy on interoperability across sectors; 

the lack of a consolidated view on all the existing interoperability initiatives; 

the lack of standards to sufficiently ensure interoperability, or the fact that standards, 
even if available, are not sufficiently integrated in the various solutions; 

the fact that the costs and benefits of interoperability are not assessed when developing 
national legislation; 

9 In this section, ‘academia’ refers to the 18 academics who replied to the open public consultation. 
10 This number includes eight businesses/private organisations registered in the Transparency register, as well as 
two unregistered businesses/private organisations. 
11 This number includes seven businesses/private organisations registered in the Transparency register, as well as 
three unregistered businesses/private organisations. 
12 In this section, ‘EU institutions/agencies’ refers to the 12 EU institutions/agencies who replied to the targeted 
consultation. 
13 In this section, ‘public administrations’ refers to the 31 public administrations who replied to the open public 
consultation. 
14 This question was addressed to public administrations who had not replied to the targeted consultation (24). 

6 

 
 
                                                            
 

 

 

the lack of monitoring of how interoperability initiatives are implemented; 

the use of proprietary IT solutions by public administrations, often creating a situation 
of vendor lock-in; and 

the tendency for national portals to be fragmented and not sufficiently integrated with 
EU portals. 

The  lack  of  collaboration  between  public  administrations  was  also  mentioned  by  Member 
States and public administrations as impeding interoperability at:  

  national level15 (5 Member States (36 %) and 2 public administrations (8 %)); and  
  EU level (3 Member States (21 %) and 5 public administrations (21 %)). 

Assessment of needs and problems related to the EIF 

Answers show that a new EIF is needed to align with the new technological trends and EU 
strategies  and  provide  more  practical  and  targeted  guidance  on  how  to  implement 
interoperability  requirements.  The  new  EIF  should  be  considered  and  implemented  when  a 
new  ICT  project  is  launched  or  legislation  is  proposed  or  reviewed  across  EU  public 

administrations. 

Most Member States and EU institutions mentioned the need for a new EIF to:  

i. 

ii. 

iii. 

take account of new technological trends (19 respondents, 73 %);  

provide  practical  and  more  targeted  guidance  on  how  to  implement  interoperability 
requirements (19 respondents, 73 %);  

align  with  the  evolution  of  EU  strategies,  in  particular  the  Digital  Single  Market 
Strategy (17 respondents, 65 %).  

The need to clarify and adapt the existing EIF principles and recommendations was also cited 
by 14 respondents (54 %). 

Most stakeholders consider the principles, recommendations and interoperability requirements 
contained  in  the  existing  EIF  when  a  new  ICT  project  is  launched,  either  fully  (17 
respondents, 22 %) or partially (32 respondents, 41 %).  

The  main  problem  impeding  the  implementation  of  the  current  EIF  in  Europe  remains  the 
cross-organisation barriers among public administrations at EU and national level. This was 
mentioned  by  a  majority  of  Member  States,  public  administrations  and  EU 
institutions/agencies  (28  respondents,  56 %).  The  lack  of  centralised  interoperability 
governance  and  coordination  at  national  level  was  also  mentioned  by  13  public 
administrations (54 %) and 8 Member States (57 %). 

Future development of the EIF 

15 While the other problems were mentioned based on a list of problems, the lack of collaboration between public 
administrations was mentioned in an open question. 

7 

 
 
                                                            
The new EIF seems to be aligned with stakeholders’ expectations since all recommendations 
are  considered  as  important  for  stakeholders  and  offering  benefits,  including  time  and  cost 
savings, transparency, reduced administrative burdens and improved data quality. 

The  EIF  recommendations  most  costly  and  complex  to  implement,  as  identified  by  public 
administrations and EU institutions, are once-only submission, administrative simplification, 
organisational interoperability, security and privacy and governance and legal interoperability. 

The target groups were asked about the EIF recommendations that should be implemented as 
a priority. The differences in the target groups’ answers reflect their particular context. 

Globally,  the  priorities  are  (i)  security  and  privacy,  (ii)  technological  neutrality  and  data 
transferability and (iii) administrative simplification.  Public administrations said that besides 
security  and  privacy,  the  priority  should  be  on  once-only  submission,  administrative 

simplification and user centricity. 

All  EIF  recommendations  were  rated  between  ‘rather  important’  and  ‘very  important’  by 
institutions/agencies  and  academia.  Also,  all  new  EIF 
public  administrations,  EU 
recommendations are also in line with the expectations from businesses/private organisations 
in general. 

More than half of the respondents in each of the four target groups expect the new EIF to i) 
contribute to time savings (57 respondents, 73 %), ii) contribute to increased transparency (53 
respondents, 68 %), iii) contribute to cost savings and better data availability (52 respondents, 
67 %),  and  iv)  facilitate  reuse,  sharing  and  adoption  of  future  solutions  (48  respondents, 
62 %).  

More  than  half  of  the  total  number  of  respondents  overall  also  expect  the  new  EIF  to 
contribute  to  supporting  innovation  (43  respondents,  55 %)  and  better  data  quality  (40 
respondents, 51 %). 

Respondents16  similarly  agree/fully  agree  that  the  EIF  will  specifically  benefit  citizens  (51 
respondents,  84 %)  and  businesses  (54  respondents,  89 %),  e.g.  by  reducing  their 
administrative burden. 

Comments  by  citizens,  businesses/private  organisations  and  academia  on  the  future 

development of the EIF mainly concerned openness, transparency and standardisation. 

Most of the comments by citizens for the draft revised EIF were on the need for openness (i.e. 
open data,  open standards, open file formats, open source  projects) and transparency. Three 
businesses/private organisations (18 %), two public  administrations (6 %) and two  members 
of academia (11 %) also mentioned the importance of referring to open standards, in line with 
the definition in the current EIF. 

16 Public administrations (31 respondents), EU institutions/agencies (12 respondents) and academia (18 
respondents) were asked whether the EIF will also benefit citizens and businesses. 

8 

 
 
                                                            
One  business/private  organisation  (6 %)  and  one  public  administration  (3 %)  believed  that 
further inputs could be added on standardisation, e.g. by making a reference to the European 
Catalogue of ICT Standards or encouraging public administrations to adopt best practices on 
standards. 

Assessment of needs and problems related to the EIS 

All  Member  States  agreed  that  the  current  interoperability  strategy  (EIS)  needs  to  be 

reviewed. 

Member States were questioned about their country’s implementation of the actions proposed 
in the current EIS. The majority of respondents answered positively (10 respondents, 71 %), 
By  contrast,  1  respondent  answered  negatively  (7 %)  and  3  respondents  (21 %)  had  no 
opinion on the matter. The lack of resources (financial, human) and the lack of strategy were 
pointed  out  as  the  main  problems  faced  by  Member  States  while  implementing  the  actions 
proposed by the current EIS were cited by 4 (29 %) and 2 respondents (14 %) respectively. 

All Member States (14) agreed that a revision of the EIS is needed, mostly to:  

i. 

ii. 

iii. 

align  with  the  technological  environment  and  political  priorities  set  since  2010,  in 
particular the Digital Single Market (5 respondents, 36 %);  

put a stronger focus on implementation (2 respondents, 14 %);  

focus  on  users’  needs;  including  those  of  citizens  and  businesses  (2 respondents, 
14 %). 

Future development of the EIS 

The ‘vision’ proposed by the EIS is valid for most stakeholders. The proposed ‘focus areas’ 
also  seem  to  cover  most  of  the  priorities  to  achieve  interoperability.  As  for  the  concrete 
actions  listed,  they  are  generally  well  accepted  by  stakeholders,  with  some  additional  ones 

proposed in the answers. 

When  presented  with  the  vision  for  the  new  EIS,  the  large  majority  of  the  stakeholders 
consulted17 (65 respondents, 87 %) agreed that the EIS should ensure that ‘By 2020, citizens 
and businesses should benefit by interoperable user-centric digital public services, at national 
and  EU  levels,  which  support  the  free  movement  of  goods,  services,  capital  and  persons 
throughout  the  Union’.  The  Member  States  who  disagreed  with  this  vision  considered  that 
more emphasis should be given to users’ needs and that the timeframe is too ambitious. 

Similarly,  when  asked  how  important  it  would  be  for  businesses/private  organisations  to 
benefit  from  interoperable  digital  public  services  at  national  and  EU  levels  by  2020,  a 

17 The target groups consulted on this question were the following: public administrations, Member States, EU 
institutions/agencies and academia. 

9 

 
 
                                                            
majority  of  businesses/private  organisations  answered  ‘very  important’  (918  respondents, 
53 %)  and  ‘rather  important’  (719  respondents,  41 %).  The  remaining  business/private 
organisation  that  answered  the  open  public  consultation  (6 %)20  considered  it  as  ‘neither 
important nor unimportant’. 

Member States classified the top priority focus areas (highest average rating equal or higher to 
5  on  a  6-item  scale21)  as  being,  in  descending  order:  user  centricity,  governance  and 
coordination,  key  enablers  and  organisational  interoperability.  The  other  focus  areas  also 
received a relatively high score (comprised between 4 and 5). 

Most  the  proposed  EIS  actions  proposed  for  national  implementation  were  rated  by  public 
administrations as between ‘rather important’ and ‘very important’. 

All of the proposed EIS actions proposed for implementation at EU level were rated by public 
administrations as between ‘rather important’ and ‘very important’, with security and privacy 
support activities receiving the highest score. 

EU  institutions/agencies  and  academia  also  considered  most  of  the  actions  to  be  between 
‘rather important’ and ‘very important’. EU institutions/agencies gave special emphasis to the 
actions  to  ‘define  and  promote  governance  structure/s  for  the  interoperable  management  of 
digital public services at European level’ and to ‘develop tools and methods to allow public 
services to align their processes’. 

As for academia, the highest scores were given for:  

  actions  to  ensure  that  interoperability  requirements  and  solutions  are  taken  into 

account when preparing and evaluating legislation at EU and national level;  

  actions  to  ensure  that  data  are  transferrable  between  the  European  public  services 

without restrictions;  

  activities related to access to European/national base registries;  

  security and data protection issues of public services. 

Businesses/private organisations were given a shorter list of actions,22 i.e. those considered as 
relevant for their target group. Out of this list, businesses/private organisations considered on 
average  that  the  most  important  actions  in  terms  of  the  benefits  that  would  be  generated, 
whether in their country or in the context of cross-border interoperability, were:  

  actions related to security and data protection issues of public services; and  

18 This number includes eight businesses/private organisations registered in the Transparency register, as well as 
one unregistered business/private organisation. 
19 This number includes five businesses/private organisations registered in the Transparency register, as well as 
two unregistered businesses/private organisations. 
20 This number refers to one unregistered business/private organisation. 
21 Respondents were asked to rank each focus area from 1 to 6; ‘1’ meaning that the item should not be covered 
by the EIS and ‘6’ meaning that the item should be a top priority of the EIS’. 
22 The list included 6 actions applicable at national level and 7 in the context of cross-border interoperability. 

10 

 
 
                                                            
  activities  that  would  facilitate  the  flow  of  information  among  national,  regional  and 

local administrations and between them and businesses and citizens. 

Finally, the stakeholders suggested 10 additional actions to be included in the strategy: 

  demonstrate the benefits of interoperability (via real-life examples and success stories) 

for public administrations, citizens and businesses; 

  set  measurable  service  targets  and  put  in  place  the  necessary  organisation  and 

legislation to reach them; 

 

include a reference to the EIS in every REFIT of EU legislation; 

  promote the use of (true) open standards and support of standards in new technologies; 

 

improve and extend the use of common and shared services; 

  align public procurement practice with the ICT projects’ needs; 

  develop  a  monitoring  and  evaluation  methodology  for  assessing  published 

 

interoperability solutions available on Joinup23; 
improve  follow-up  and  accompanying  initiatives  during  the  implementation  of 
interoperability solutions at national level; 

  use  user  research  to  identify  cases  where  interoperability  is  needed  to  deliver  better, 
specific  services  that  support  delivery  of  the  Digital  Single  Market  Strategy  and  the 
eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020; 

  ensure  that  accessibility  is  a  mandatory  criterion  when  developing  interoperability 
policies, legislation and solutions between public services, citizens and businesses. 

Subsidiarity and consistency at EU level 

The revision of the EIF/EIS is consistent with other EU initiatives and provides clear added 

value over action at Member State level. 

Some  74 %  of  the  respondents  (10 Member  States,  26  public  administrations,  10  EU 
institutions/agencies,  11  members  of  academia  and  1124  businesses/private  organisations) 
agreed  that  the  revision  of  the  EIS  and  the  EIF  provides  clear  added  value  over  action  at 
Member State level. 

The consultation results have been taken into account  in the Communication, the main text of 
which is dedicated to setting up the interoperability strategy and which contains two annexes: 
the  interoperability  action  plan  (Annex  1)  and  the  revised  European  interoperability 
framework (Annex 2). 

23 https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/  
24 This number includes nine businesses/private organisations registered in the Transparency register, as well as 
two unregistered businesses/private organisations. 

11