Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of Directive 2007/2/EC of March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) pursuant to article 23

Environmental problems do not stop at borders. Solving them often requires cooperation between countries, which is more successful when it is easy to share data across borders and organisations. There are benefits associated with the effective and efficient collection and sharing of data linked to a particular location (spatial data). Besides facilitating better environmental management, this can create synergies with the EU’s Digital Single Market strategy, such as developing innovative new products and services that create high-quality jobs and improve European competitiveness.

The Directive establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (the INSPIRE Directive) supports the application of knowledge-based policies and monitoring of activities that have an environmental impact. It sets out actions to remove obstacles to the sharing of spatial data between all levels of government within and across Member States.

The Commission included the INSPIRE Directive in its Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT) in 2013 to assess whether this instrument remains fit for purpose at the halfway mark of its implementation. This report presents the implementation progress and summarises the results of the evaluation.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: SWD(2016)243: Executive summary of the evaluation of Directive 2007/2/EC establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) and underpinning the report on implementation http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2016:243:FIN

ESO: Background information: Mid-term evaluation report on INSPIRE implementation http://www.europeansources.info/record/mid-term-evaluation-report-on-inspire-implementation/

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