• The European Commission has adopted the Interoperable Europe Act proposal which will support the creation of a network of digital public administrations.

• DIGITAL SME welcomes the proposal as an important step that will allow SMEs to deliver innovative solutions and meet the new data usage challenges.

On the 21^st of November, the European Commission adopted the Interoperable Europe Act proposal to strengthen cooperation between national administrations on data exchanges and IT solutions. The Commission estimates that cross-border interoperability can lead to cost-savings between €5.5 and €6.3 million for citizens and between €5.7 and €19.2 billion for businesses dealing with public administrations.

The Interoperable Europe Act introduces a framework of cooperation between EU Member States and EU Institutions to secure cross-border exchange of data and agree on shared digital solutions, such as open-source software, guidelines and frameworks. It will provide incentives for innovation in the public sector and for ‘’GovTech’’ projects, based on public-private partnerships.

Besides structured cooperation, the Interoperable Europe Act also introduces mandatory assessments to evaluate changes in IT systems on cross-border interoperability in the EU. Moreover, it introduces an Interoperable Europe Portal – a one stop-shop to power the share and reuse of solutions, often open-source. Finally, the proposal puts forth innovation and support measures, including regulatory sandboxes that will promote regulatory experimentation.

The interoperability cooperation framework will be steered by the Interoperable Europe Board. The Board will be composed of representatives from the EU Member States, the Commission, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee.

Paulo Valente, Chair of DIGITAL SME’s Focus Group Smart Communities commented: ‘’The Interoperable Europe Act is an important step towards scalable and replicable methods which empowers SMEs to grow and deliver on the new data usage challenges. This regulation is also very promising because it combines a framework for the existing models with the innovation that can be experimented on regulatory sandboxes. FG Smart Communities of the European DIGITAL SME Alliance is looking forward to contribute to its best achievements. To enable the value of the framework and to avoid fragmentation, we need future-proof tools and processes.’’