
Interoperable Europe
The EU has given the go-ahead to improve digital cooperation between authorities.
UM – 01/2025
The Interoperable Europe Act was adopted on 13 March last year. The European legislator has committed all public administrations within the member states to ensuring, when they revise their cross-border public services, that these services can also be used from other member states if they are already digitised or whenever corresponding digital services are revised. This obligation has now come into force. As from the 12 January, all public administrations throughout the EU will have to carry out so-called interoperability assessments to ensure that this requirement is being met.
Focusing on: Interoperability assessments
Interoperability assessments describe a process that explores the opportunities and obstacles arising from cross-border interoperability. They are intended to help public administrations recognise at an early stage what measures they need to implement to enable seamless cross-border data exchanges. If a digital solution has been developed for a commercial process and this process has a cross-border character, then a digital interface that enables trans-European digital communications must also be provided. The European Commission adopted guidelines about standardising the implementation of interoperability assessments at the end of 2024.
Interoperability portal and the reporting tool
The European Commission has set up an online portal to simplify exchanging and working on interoperability assessments in administrative practices. The Interoperable Europe Portal will be supplemented by an online tool that can create machine-readable, multilingual reports and make them publicly accessible. Training measures to further educate public sector employees are now being planned so that integrating interoperability solutions throughout the EU will be successful and they will also provide a good basis for mutual learning.
Impact on social insurance
Access to social security information or digital patient records are classic areas that the law for an interoperable Europe is aimed at. However, many processes with a cross-border character are already regulated or are in preparation. Cross-border use of patient records falls within the scope of the European Health Data Space (EHDS). Information, including invoicing information, is exchanged digitally between the social security institutions through the electronic exchange of social security information (EESSI) procedure. Cross-border digital processes that provide PD A1 certificates and therefore prove which state is responsible for social security as well as ensuring the digital use of the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) are currently in the project stage. They will be among the first public administration online services that will be made available in the future through the single digital gateway.
However, there are some application areas in social security with a cross-border character for which no standardised European digital solutions yet exist. One example of this is mortality data comparisons used in pension insurance. Only bilateral solutions currently have this interface. This could well be extended to all EU countries. Other application areas are conceivable.