RE: [egov] News: "IDA Releases European Interoperability Framework for P

Joe, All:

I have to be careful which hat I’m wearing in commenting on this, so I’ll stick to my Individual OASIS Member profile for now.

Both John Borras’ team (at the UK eGovernment Unit) and my service in the European Parliament followed the evolution of this document since its inception. I’ll admit that I haven’t had a chance to do a full diff between the published version, and the last one presented to the project board back in February 2004 (the project was near dormant in the meantime).

You are absolutely right that it is core to our TC’s mission. Although John or Maewyn Cumming may respond separately, I think we shared some principle criticisms, notably:

- the framework is too voluntary: we had both argued for a mandatory or at least more strongly worded framework that administrations and solution suppliers would feel some obligation to conform to;

- there is no implementation or maintenance authority: the Commission has argued (fairly) that it does not directly have the right (“legal basis” in the jargon) to just “magic” some policy authority out of thin air. We had achieved some commitment to a separate part of the framework concerning governance issues, but this seems to have disappeared for the moment.

On the plus side, some initiatives are under consideration that aim to plug the gaps, and I’ll keep the list updated as they advance.

Regards,

Peter

From: Chiusano Joseph [mailto:chiusano_joseph@bah.com]
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 11:36 PM
To: OASIS eGov list
Subject: [egov] News: "IDA Releases European Interoperability Framework for Pan-European E-Government Services"

Just announced, and directly applicable to our mission: IDA Releases European Interoperability Framework for Pan-European E-Government Services[1]. Actual document is at [2].

Highlights:

- The European Commission's Interchange of Data Between Administrations (IDA) released a Final Version 1.0 of its European Interoperability Framework for Pan-European E-Government Services, approved by the Telematics Between Administrations Committee (TAC) Steering Committee. Publication of the EIF document follows a ten-month period of review and feedback by Members States, industry representatives, and stakeholders within the institutions.

- The European Interoperability Framework document "provides recommendations and defines generic standards with regard to organizational, semantic, and technical aspects of interoperability, offering a comprehensive set of principles for European cooperation in eGovernment.

- The European Interoperability Framework "supports the European Union's strategy of providing user-centred eGovernment services by facilitating, at a pan-European level, the interoperability of services and systems between public administrations, as well as between administrations and the public (citizens, businesses). It is an action of the eEurope 2005 Action Plan, under the eGovernment heading."

- The EIF document considers "interoperability" in three dimensions, and -categorizes the seventeen Recommendations according to this taxonomy: organizational interoperability, semantic interoperability, and technical interoperability.

[1] http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2004-12-06-a.html

[2] http://xml.coverpages.org/IDA-EIF-Final10.pdf

Kind Regards,

Joseph Chiusano

Booz Allen Hamilton

Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World

egov message