Report of the Consultation Meeting regarding GI2000

  4 March 1999

Towards a European Policy Framework for Geographic Information

updated 27/04/99

Table of content

• Objectives
• Participants
• Structure of the meeting
• Possible options regarding GI2000
• Other issues raised
• Summary remarks
• Follow-up
• Conclusion
• Add-in : contribution from the University of Utrecht

Objectives.

1. To re-assess the need for GI2000 - the draft Communication regarding a European Policy Framework for GI - taking into account the significant time that has passed since the document was first produced. The question posed to participants was whether it is sufficiently up to date or does it need reworking.
2. To see if the participants still favoured "relevant, necessary and wanted" specific European actions by the European Commission in the area of GI.

Participants.

Structure of the meeting.

Short presentations were then made by Commission staff concerning the history and goals of GI2000 (Mr. M. Littlejohn), of the recently released Green Paper on Public Sector Information in the Information Society (Mr. P. Bischoff), and about the Information Society Technologies thematic programme of the Fifth RTD Framework Programme (Mr. B. Smith), especially Key Action 3 "Multimedia Content and Tools", under which opportunities existed for actions related to geographic information. Mr. Bischoff also highlighted the importance of the GI community making their comments known to the Commission about access to public sector information in relation to geographic information, prior to the 1 June 1999 closing date for submission of comments.

Possible options regarding GI2000.

1. To abandon GI2000
2. To give GI2000 high priority
3. To transfer the initiative to another service (in the Commission)
4. To pursue GI2000 goals and objectives under the Fifth RTD Framework Programme

In the ensuing tour de table, all 23 participants all favoured option (2) above, i.e. that the GI2000 initiative and draft Communication be given "high priority" by the Commission and that a strong political signal should be sent to the Commission hierarchy to this effect. Support for the initiative was also strong from the JRC and Eurostat representatives, who both pointed out that they represent EU services that rely strongly on GI at national and pan-European scale (Eurostat), as well as on advancing GIS technology (JRC).

There was also support from many participants for option (4) - initiating relevant GI2000-related activities under the Fifth Framework Programme. It was generally agreed that this should be seen as a supporting activity compared to option (2).

There was no support for option (1) and no support for option (3), which it was felt would simply delay further action on GI2000. Any further delay was considered to be potentially lethal to the whole initiative.

Other issues raised.

Strong political mandates, regarding the importance and significance to commerce and quality of live offered by increased use of GI, are already in place or well underway in the EU's major trading partners. If Europe is expected to compete in the global marketplace, and not just regarding "information", then it cannot afford to wait longer for positive action regarding a European framework for GI. European frameworks most certainly act as a lever to national developments.

Summary remarks.

1. GI issues in Europe were not only still as important as they were four years ago with the GI2000 initiative began, but they might be even more important today. Strong support must be expressed at high political levels today, as "even 6 months delay could be fatal".
2. More action is needed than simply supporting further GI-related projects - a strategic approach is needed, with strong political support (from the Member States, from within the EC itself and from the whole GI community).
3. There was a significant role for the High Level Working Party (HLWP) proposed in the GI2000 draft Communication and the HLWP should be started as soon as possible, as this would help get stronger political support and focus attention on the GI2000 initiative.
4. DG XIII should retain the leadership of GI2000.

Follow-up.

In order to achieve the above, the following actions were agreed:

1. Participants were encouraged to submit any comments they have on the existing GI2000 document to Mr. Littlejohn by 19 March, who would revise the document accordingly.
2. Participants were asked to provide further examples to quantify the value and importance of GI to all sectors of Europe, in business, industry, local and national government and private citizens' lives (especially Common Agricultural Policy and underground utility assets).
3. All participants should spread the word about the forthcoming Call for Proposals in the IST thematic programme of the Fifth Framework Programme, which will be launched mid March, for which proposals are due back at the Commission by 16 June. There were opportunities in this call which could be very useful to the GI community, including the ability to suggest Accompanying Measures with concrete GI2000 related actions to start the harmonisation efforts.

• It was suggested that GI2000 could be initiated by creating the High Level Working Party in advance. A letter from Mr Bangemann to Commission colleagues and relevant Member States' ministers could ensure sufficient high level interest.
• Participants from the Troika countries (A, D, FIN) undertook to explore the possibilities with their respective government departments for adopting a Council resolution on GI under the Finnish presidency in the second half of the year.

Conclusion.

Mr. de Bruïne closed the meeting by thanking all participants for giving of their time. The message from the participants was very clear - the Commission should continue to play a coordinating role and launch a political debate in this very important area that still had the strong support of the whole European GI community. This message would be passed to his hierarchy immediately.

However, facing very real internal resource limitations at DG XIII/E, it was important that the participants use every avenue open to them, including the forthcoming Call for Proposals in the Fifth Framework Programme, to make practical advances at every step. It was important that the GI community continued to take such actions as they could, when they could, without waiting for everything to be fully agreed at some high political level - as this still could take quite a long time.

Meeting Participants, 4 March 1999

Add-in :

contribution of M. de Wit and P.A. Burrough,
Utrecht Centre for Environment and Landscape Dynamics,
Faculty of Geographical Sciences,
University of Utrecht

This powerpoint presentation includes material from a soon to be completed study of the transport of nitrates and phosphates over the larger European river catchments, namely the Rhine and the Elbe that was financed by the Dutch RIVM.
Both these river catchments cover several countries and the authors have had considerable difficulties, not in getting hold of data, but in matching it so that errors and ambiguities are minimised. Marcel de Wit has developed a series of predictive models for the loads of N and P in the rivers, which were validated by many independent data. His predicitve models were so developed that each successive model included the procedures of the previous one plus and extra component to take care of particular aspects of the transport process.
After a lot of work he was able to plot the quality of the model (as validated) against the complexity of the models. In this he had three sources of error - in the original data, in the validation data, and in the structure of the models. A clear conclusion was that the major factor limiting the success of the models was the quality of the original data, in particular, the differences between countries, or former countries and their methods, references and methods of classification. M.de Wit's work will be published in a soon to be completed PhD thesis at the University of Utrecht later this year.