INFRASTRUCTURE FOR SPATIAL INFORMATION
IN THE COMMUNITY (INSPIRE) (11781/04)
Letter from Ian Pearson MP, Minister of
State for Climate Change & Environment, Department for Environment
Food and Rural Affairs to the Chairman
Further to my letter of 5 July 2006[77]
regarding the above-mentioned dossier, I am writing to inform
your Committee of the current position on this dossier.
INSPIRE is an initiative to create a European
Spatial Data Infrastructure by improving the interoperability
of spatial information across the European Union at local, regional,
national and trans-national level. In doing so it aims to facilitate
improvements in the sharing of spatial information between public
authorities and provide improved public access. Environmental
information will be the first theme to be covered by INSPIRE,
but it is intended that INSPIRE will eventually be extended to
cover other themes such as agriculture and transport.
INSPIRE entered conciliation at the end of September,
during where there were a number of informal trialogues between
the Commission, Council and the European Parliament (EP), as they
worked towards an agreement.
Unresolved issues were considered by the Conciliation
Committee, which was convened on 21 November. The outstanding
amendments, as proposed by the EP, would have severely damaged
essential UK defence interests and the financial sustainability
of UK Trading Funds, imposing additional costs of up to £1
billion per year.
The UK's key priorities in conciliation were
to ensure:
— Public authorities are able to license
and require payment for use of data;
— Protection of national defence interest;
and
— The Commission undertakes a robust
cost/benefit and feasibility analysis for each of the implementing
rules.
The Conciliation Committee was able to resolve
the outstanding issues and attain agreement, which secured the
UK's objectives. In relation to cost benefit analysis, whilst
it is only explicitly mentioned with respect to the implementing
rules on interoperability and harmonisation, the agreed text includes
several additional points and provisions that reduce the possibility
of significantly increased costs to data providers.
A consolidated text will be prepared and submitted
for a formal vote to the Council of Ministers and the EP Plenary.
Assuming the text is ratified, as expected, the Directive will
come into force early in 2007 with transposition required by 2009.
Detailed implementing rules (IRs) will accompany
the Directive and these will be decided by Comitology. They will
be adopted between 2008 and 2012 and come into force between 2010
and 2019.
Over the next few months Defra will continue
to liaise with Other Government Departments and the Devolved Administrations
to consider the UK's approach to transposition and implementation
of the Directive.
12 December 2006
77 Correspondence with Ministers, 40th Report of Session
2006-07, HL Paper 187, p 262. Back
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