The general situation on spatial information in Europe is one of fragmentation of datasets and sources, gaps in availability, lack of harmonisation between datasets at different geographical scales and duplication of information collection. These problems make it difficult to identify, access and use data that is available.

Fortunately, awareness is growing at national and at EU level about the need for quality geo-referenced information to support understanding of the complexity and interactions between human activities and environmental pressures and impacts The INSPIRE initiative is therefore timely and relevant but also a major challenge given the general situation outlined above and the many stakeholder interests to be addressed.

INSPIRE is complementary to related policy initiatives, such as the Commission proposal for a Directive on the re-use and commercial exploitation of Public Sector Information.

INSPIRE is ambitious. The initiative intends to trigger the creation of a European spatial information infrastructure that delivers to the users integrated spatial information services. These services should allow the users to identify and access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources, from the local level to the global level, in an inter-operable way for a variety of uses. The target users of INSPIRE include policy-makers, planners and managers at European, national and local level and the citizens and their organisations. Possible services are the visualisation of information layers, overlay of information from different sources, spatial and temporal analysis, etc.