October 2006: EUROGI sends an Open Letter to the Finnish Presidency outlining EUROGI's strong support for an INSPIRE Directive.

http://sdi.jrc.it/ws/inspire_days/

Development of the legal process regarding the INSPIRE Directive.

Indeed the parliament and the council reached an agreement in december 2006 on the final text for the INSPIRE dossier. But this text is still under construction by the linguistic and judicial services of
the parliament. It will only be voted in february, by the plenary parliament. So only after this vote the text will be adopted (or not) and definitive. Although it will be sooner available on the internet,
I can not tell you precisely when that will be.


http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/misc/91823.pdf

INSPIRE Proposed Directive (version: July 2004)

INSPIRE, the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe programme aims to make relevant, harmonised and quality geographic information available for the purpose of formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating Community policies.

Six orientation papers were drafted focusing on environmental issues. Working groups turned them  into position papers. EUROGI participated in the legal aspects and data policy/impact analysis groups.
1. Environmental data needed by the Environmental Thematic Co-ordination
2. Reference data and Metadata Working Group and Standards and Infrastructure
3. Legal Aspects and Data policy (EUROGI member, RAVI Netherlands in WG)
4. Implementation Structures and Funding
5. Architecture and Standards
6. Impact Analysis. (EUROGI member, GeoForum Denmark in WG)

Below are some of the activities that EUROGI took towards INSPIRE:

October 2006: EUROGI sends an Open Letter to the Finnish Presidency outlining EUROGI's strong support for an INSPIRE Directive.

November 11th 2005: The INSPIRE updated the State of Play Country Reports. EUROGI members participated.

November 4-5 2005: EUROGI members meet in Innsbruck and discuss o.a. INSPIRE. View short report here.

October 3-5 2005: Kick off meeting for Drafting Teams. EUROGI attended.

August 1st 2005: INSPIRE creates Drafting Teams for the implementing rules: metadata, data specification, network services, monitoring and reporting and spatial data sharing.  EUROGI becomes a SDIC, Special Interest Data Community. 

Letter to INSPIRE Chair, Franck, dated 22June05:
An option that EUROGI suggests is to have national governments enter into some type of an agreement with the data suppliers. Data can be purchased from the supplier (e.g. a National Mapping Agency, Land Registry or private sector data provider) for an agreed sum on the basis of a level playing field. In return, data could be used without restriction at point of use, across the public sector.
To further strengthen this offered solution, I make reference to EUROGI’s EU Industry Day, an event held on June 1st 2005. Leading representatives from Europe's geographic information (GI) industry shared their stories of success and the bottlenecks they face with regard to European policy. The message was clear: Europe's economic potential depends not on data itself but on the services which are created from it. Help make data accessible!.

June 2005: All EUROGI Members urgently asked to contact their ministers and highlight the benefits of an INSPIRE. The INSPIRE Directive is about to go through a 1st Reading during an European Parliament Plenary Session scheduled for the end of June.

April 2005: EUROGI . EUROGI supports INSPIRE very much. Geographic information, with all its aspects, should become a fully integrated component of the European knowledge-based society.

October 2004: EUROGI established a Working & Advisory Group Datasets (INSPIRE). Their activities can be viewed under Members Only --> Special Interest Groups --> WAG Datasets, of this website.

July 2004: INSPIRE Initiative adopted by the European Commission.

November 2003: EUROGI lobbied for INSPIRE. View the letters that EUROGI sent to the Commissioners. View the response from Commissioner Busquin. In addition, EUROGI members in Denmark, Germany and United Kingdom wrote letters. View the letters from Denmark and a response from Commissioner Busquin. View the letters from Germany to Commissioner Busquin and Commissioner Solbes and Commissioner Wallstom. View the responses from Commissioner Solbes and Commissioner Wallstom. View the letter from United Kingdom to Commissioner Wallstom. View the response from Commissioner Busquin to the United Kingdom.

May 2003: An Internet Consultation followed. EUROGI ensured that its members' views were heard. View EUROGI's response here.