The European Parliament adopted by 623 votes to 25, with 35 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on administrative cooperation through the Internal Market Information System (‘the IMI Regulation’).
Parliament adopted its position on first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure. The agreement was the result of a compromise negotiated between Parliament and Council. The main amendments to the proposal are as follows:
Scope: it is stipulated that IMI shall be used for administrative cooperation between competent authorities of the Member States and between competent authorities of the Member States and the Commission necessary for the implementation of Union acts in the field of the internal market, within the meaning of Article 26(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Those Union acts are listed in the Annex.
Nothing in this Regulation shall have the effect of rendering mandatory the provisions of Union acts which have no binding force.
Expansion of IMI: the Commission may carry out pilot projects in order to assess whether IMI would be an effective tool to implement provisions for administrative cooperation of Union acts not listed in the Annex.
The Commission shall adopt an implementing act to determine which provisions of Union acts shall be subject to a pilot project and to set out the modalities of each project, in particular the basic technical functionality and procedural arrangements required to implement the relevant administrative cooperation provisions.
The Commission shall submit an evaluation of the outcome of the pilot project, including data protection issues and effective translation functionalities, to the European Parliament and the Council. Where appropriate, that evaluation may be accompanied by a legislative proposal to amend the Annex to expand the use of IMI to the relevant provisions of Union acts.
Practical arrangements to enable information exchange via IMI: these arrangements should be adopted by the Commission in the form of a separate implementing act for each Union act listed in the Annex or for each type of administrative cooperation procedure and should cover the essential technical functionality and procedural arrangements required to implement the relevant administrative cooperation procedures via IMI. The Commission should ensure the maintenance and development of the software and IT infrastructure for IMI.
Processing of personal data: IMI actors shall exchange and process personal data only for the purposes defined in the relevant provisions of the Union acts listed in the Annex. Data submitted to IMI by data subjects shall only be used for the purposes for which the data were submitted.
Personal data processed in IMI shall be blocked in IMI as soon as they are no longer necessary for the purpose for which they were collected, depending on the specificities of each type of administrative cooperation and, as a general rule, no later than six months after the formal closure of the administrative cooperation procedure.
The Commission :
- shall only have access to such personal data that are strictly necessary to carry out its tasks within the responsibilities set out in this Regulation, such as the registration of national IMI coordinators;
- shall also have access to personal data when retrieving, upon a request by another IMI actor, such data that have been blocked in IMI and to which the data subject has requested access;
- shall not have access to personal data exchanged as part of administrative cooperation within IMI, unless a Union act provides for a role for the Commission in such cooperation.
National IMI coordinators shall act as the main contact point for IMI actors of the Member States for issues relating to IMI, including providing information on aspects relating to the protection of personal data in accordance with this Regulation.
Information exchange with third countries: where international agreements are concluded between the Union and third countries that also cover the application of provisions of Union acts listed in the Annex to this Regulation, it should be possible to include the counterparts of IMI actors in such third countries in the administrative cooperation procedures supported by IMI, provided that it has been established that the third country concerned offers an adequate level of protection of personal data in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC.
SOLVIT: the use of IMI for the technical support of the SOLVIT network shall be without prejudice to the informal character of the SOLVIT procedure which is based on a voluntary commitment of the Member States.
To continue the functioning of the SOLVIT network on the basis of existing work arrangements, one or more tasks of the national IMI coordinator may be assigned to SOLVIT centres within the remit of their work, so that they can function independently from the national IMI coordinator.