Question (NPOC)

The "Common Position (EC) No 5/2006 adopted by the Council January 23, 2006 for the adoption of Directive 2006 EC ... establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) - (2006/C 126 E/02)" has determined that telecommunication utilities are not included in the scope of the Directive:

The spatial data themes "distribution of road accidents" (amendment 43, paragraph 6) and "telecommunications" (amendment 44, paragraph 7) are not included in the common position, because they are not related to the purpose of Inspire.

How telecommunication utilities are concerned in INSPIRE?

Answer (EC Inspire Team)

Find below the proposed way ahead as far as telecommunication networks in INSPIRE are concerned.

1) Telecommunication utilities are indeed not explicitly included in the scope of the INSPIRE Directive.

2) Telecommunication utilities should however not be excluded from the data specification technical guidelines. For example, to have geo-spatial interoperable data on telecom utilities has several potential applications areas such as disaster preparedness, response and reconstruction, spatial planning and environmental impact assessments (for example impact of telecom utility infrastructure on biodiversity and studies related to human health). These use-cases were taken into account by the TWG.

3) The Commission therefore proposes the Committee to consider it acceptable to retain the specifications and data models on telecommunication facilities in the technical guidelines, however without including them in the proposed amendment to the Regulation on interoperability of spatial data sets and services.

4) The Commission asks the advice of the Committee to consider if telecommunication related utilities should not be added to description through the INSPIRE Article 4 (7) procedure: The description of the existing data themes referred to in Annexes I, II and III may be adapted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 22 (3), in order to take into account the evolving needs for spatial data in support of Community policies that affect the environment.

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