About the Document
This is a 2025 report published by the Publications Office of the European Union and authored by Thorsten Reitz, Jordi Escriu and Marco Minghini. It was released on the EU publications website on 2025-10-03. Its subject is data interoperability for environmental data sharing and reuse across the European Union.
Context and Scope
The report states that data interoperability is essential for effective data use and for a working data economy in the EU. It notes that past policy initiatives, such as INSPIRE and the Interoperable Europe Act, have not always balanced efforts and benefits, which led to incomplete, heterogeneous or delayed interoperability. Its focus is on high-value datasets from the geospatial and environmental domain, as defined in the 2019 Open Data Directive, within the goal of simplification set by the second von der Leyen European Commission.
Methodology and Structure
- The methodology analyses past data sharing initiatives to identify main interoperability aspects, evaluating what was effective and what needs improvement.
- Section 3 proposes interoperability approaches potentially applicable to Common European Data Spaces, taking their inter-dependencies into account, with a focus on the Green Deal Data Space.
- Section 5 contrasts the maturity of existing approaches with the difficulty and impact of the proposed ones.
- Section 6 closes the report with final conclusions.
Purpose for Environmental Data Sharing
The report states that its findings are aimed at pragmatically informing the future of environmental data sharing, particularly the deployment of the Green Deal Data Space, within the European Strategy for Data implementation and the European Data Union.