Introduction

The 7th EC GI-GIS Workshop, held last year (13-15 June 2001) in Postdam was titled "EGII - Managing the Mosaic". In particular the first session addressed the issue "EGII and Data Policies" and the overall objective of the workshop was to understand the broader context and identify a strategy to "manage the European mosaic" or to compose the European Puzzle.

INSPIRE

Since then a new initiative of the European Commission has been launched: The INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe initiative (INSPIRE) . The INSPIRE initiative aims at making available relevant, harmonised and quality geographic information for the purpose of formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Community environmental policy-making and for the citizen, along the lines of the general principles set out in the box below.

Furthermore, by establishing from the onset cross-sectoral co-ordination mechanisms, the initiative wants to ensure that in the longer term, this first phase can be integrated into a broader cross-sectoral Infrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe, aiming at providing geographic information for the purpose of Community policy-making in a broad range of sectors, such as transport and agriculture. The first period will be devoted to the preparation of a proposal for a Community INSPIRE framework legislative act. At the end of June, some position papers addressing the issue of the proposed legislative framework will be close to be finalised.

INSPIRE vision
  • Data should be collected once and maintained at the level where this can be done most effectively
  • It should be possible to combine seamlessly spatial information from different sources across Europe and share it between many users and application
  • It should be possible for information collected at one level to be shared between all the different levels, detailed for detailed investigations, general for strategic purposes
  • Geographic information needed for good governance at all levels should be abundant under conditions that do not refrain its extensive use
  • It should be easy to discover which geographic information is available, fits the needs for a particular use and under which conditions it can be acquired and used
  • Geographic data should become easy to understand and interpret because it can be visualised within the appropriate context selected in a user-friendly way



Workshop

The JRC and the GINIE project consider the 8th EC GI-GIS workshop as providing an excellent opportunity to discuss such position papers with an enlarged audience in order to evaluate the benefits and impact of the proposed legislative framework and in addition to identify possible obstacles for its implementation. Thus the title of the 8th EC GI-GIS Workshop: "European Spatial Data Infrastructure: A Work in Progress".