The European Parliament adopted by 648 votes to 12, with 17 abstentions, a legislative resolution amending, under the first reading of the codecision procedure, the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA).
The amendments were the result of a compromise negotiated with the Council. The main amendments were as follows:
Subject matter and objective: the objective of the ISA programme is to support the cooperation between European public administrations by facilitating the efficient and effective electronic cross-border and cross-sector interaction between such administrations, including bodies performing public functions on their behalf. Moreover, the ISA Programme shall be extended to include local and regional authorities.
The ISA programme should also support the interoperability of public key infrastructures.
General principles: in accordance with the wish of MEPs, actions launched or continued under the ISA programme shall be based on the principles of openness and reusability.
Solutions: common frameworks shall be established and maintained by means of studies. Studies shall be published and forwarded to European Parliament committees responsible and to the Commission as a basis for future legislative modifications to ensure the interoperability of the computer systems used by public administrations.
Implementation rules: a study or project shall be open for accession at any stage, and Member States not involved in a study or project shall be encouraged to join at a later stage. In order to ensure interoperability between national and community systems, common frameworks, common services and generic tools shall be specified with reference to existing European standards or publicly available or open specifications for information exchange and service integration.
Committee: the Commission shall be assisted by the committee on Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (the “ISA Committee”). The ISA Committee shall adopt its rules of procedure.
Monitoring and evaluation of the programme: the ISA programme shall be subject to an interim and a final evaluation, the results of which shall be communicated to the European Parliament and the Council. In this context, the responsible committee of the European Parliament may invite the Commission to present the evaluation results and answer questions put by its members.
Interaction with stakeholders: a new article provides that the Commission shall bring together relevant stakeholders for the purposes of exchanging views among themselves and with the Commission on issues addressed by the ISA programme. To this end, the Commission shall organise conferences, workshops and other meetings; it shall make use of electronic interactive platforms and may use any other means for interaction which it considers appropriate.
International cooperation: the Parliament extended international cooperation to the Eastern Partnership and to the countries of the Black Sea region. Moreover, the ISA programme shall promote, wherever appropriate, re-use of its solutions by third countries.