
Commission relents on RINA
The social security data exchange software service will be maintained until mid-2022.
UM – 12/2021
At the beginning of December the EC
announced that it would continue to provide and maintain the RINA software
beyond the end of the year. It intends to provide limited capacity for this.
Initially, the service was to be discontinued in July, then at the end of
December 2021 (see also DSV NEWS
1.2021). It took intensive talks, parliamentary referral to the Labour and
Social Affairs Committee and, finally, discussion in the Employment, Social
Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) to persuade the EC to
relent.
This postponement is necessary
Since last year, German Social Insurance
has been campaigning intensively for RINA to be extended via ESIP, its European
platform. As recently as October, ESIP was able to take advantage of an
invitation from the Committee on Labour, Social Affairs and Integration to once
again issue a strong warning about the consequences of withdrawing from RINA at
this stage. As long as national organisations are still using RINA to implement
the EESSI (Electronic Exchange of Social Insurance Data) project, they are
bound to rely on its maintenance and regular updates. Naturally, they also know
that this Commission service is finite. Their decision to extend the service by
about half a year is a concession in this respect.
RINA to be placed in new hands in mid-2022
However, part of the truth is that the
Commission seriously underestimated the effort and time needed to implement
EESSI. With the focus on EESSI implementation, one or two social insurers might
have held on to RINA for a little too long. Delays were also encountered when
preparing the call for tenders for the search for a provider to take over the
Commission's tasks for RINA users and to maintain and further develop the
national applications in the future. The optimistic assumption is that a
suitable contractual partner will be found by the middle of next
year.
EESSI must run smoothly
However, the limited extension of support
by the Commission is not "business as usual". Support is
limited to the core components of EESSI to avoid blocking key processes or
causing critical incidents that would negatively impact the entire EESSI
ecosystem. The support is primarily aimed at those countries that still use
RINA. But everyone benefits from using it. If the exchange within the EESSI
system is disrupted, then this will affect all 32 participating countries.
Goodbye paper
Implementing EESSI is well advanced. The
German Social Insurance system is expected to be able to handle all planned
cross-border communications and exchange processes electronically during the
coming year. RINA will no longer be used. As countries make progress in
implementing EESSI, they will also be able to say goodbye to increasingly
expensive paper-based communications.