European CZM and the GSDI Initiative
551
EU Initiatives in Relation to GSDI
The European Commission sent a Communication to the Council, to the European
Parliament, to the Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of Regions titled
“GI2000: Towards a European Policy Framework for Geographic Information”. This
document set out Commission thinking in regard to “... a policy framework to set up
and maintain a stable, European-wide set of agreed rules, standards, procedures,
guidelines and incentives for creating, collecting, updating, exchanging, accessing and
using geographic information.
This policy framework must create a favourable
business environment for a competitive, plentiful, rich and differentiated supply of
European geographic information that is easily identifiable and easily accessible.”(DG
XIII/E, 1997)
The document refers to “global issues” in a very few places, as follows:
“The most important political actions needed are to achieve agreement between the
Member States ... to ensure that European solutions are globally compatible.”
“The G7 Ministerial Conference in Brussels on 25-26 February 1995 confirmed the
opportunities the information society will offer and stressed the need for global
cooperation. Several of the projects defined at this summit involve significant use of
geographic information. This concerns especially the projects on Environmental and
Natural Resources management, Global Emergency Management and Maritime
Information Systems.”
“The policy should take account of similar initiatives in other parts of the world and
ensure European contribution to initiatives of global harmonisation of geographic
information.”
According to the proposed Communication, either the Commission or a
public/private partnership coordinating group established by the Commission, will
attempt coordination in regard to global geographic information policy and projects,
such as those proposed via the G7 and discussions already initiated at global level for
the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (Chenez, 1996).
However, there is little evidence that the European Commission officials
currently in charge of the GI2000 “initiative” are greatly concerned about globalisation
issues, partly because these are at such an early stage of discussion and because there is
still so much work to be done in the European arena on harmonisation of panEuropean GI. To support this statement, it is worth noting that no European
Commission official attended the first GSDI conference in Bonn, held in September
1996, even though the meeting was billed as being under the patronage of
Commissioner Bangemann. European interests at this meeting were represented by
EUROGI and senior academics from the European GI R&D community.
551
EU Initiatives in Relation to GSDI
The European Commission sent a Communication to the Council, to the European
Parliament, to the Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of Regions titled
“GI2000: Towards a European Policy Framework for Geographic Information”. This
document set out Commission thinking in regard to “... a policy framework to set up
and maintain a stable, European-wide set of agreed rules, standards, procedures,
guidelines and incentives for creating, collecting, updating, exchanging, accessing and
using geographic information.
This policy framework must create a favourable
business environment for a competitive, plentiful, rich and differentiated supply of
European geographic information that is easily identifiable and easily accessible.”(DG
XIII/E, 1997)
The document refers to “global issues” in a very few places, as follows:
“The most important political actions needed are to achieve agreement between the
Member States ... to ensure that European solutions are globally compatible.”
“The G7 Ministerial Conference in Brussels on 25-26 February 1995 confirmed the
opportunities the information society will offer and stressed the need for global
cooperation. Several of the projects defined at this summit involve significant use of
geographic information. This concerns especially the projects on Environmental and
Natural Resources management, Global Emergency Management and Maritime
Information Systems.”
“The policy should take account of similar initiatives in other parts of the world and
ensure European contribution to initiatives of global harmonisation of geographic
information.”
According to the proposed Communication, either the Commission or a
public/private partnership coordinating group established by the Commission, will
attempt coordination in regard to global geographic information policy and projects,
such as those proposed via the G7 and discussions already initiated at global level for
the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (Chenez, 1996).
However, there is little evidence that the European Commission officials
currently in charge of the GI2000 “initiative” are greatly concerned about globalisation
issues, partly because these are at such an early stage of discussion and because there is
still so much work to be done in the European arena on harmonisation of panEuropean GI. To support this statement, it is worth noting that no European
Commission official attended the first GSDI conference in Bonn, held in September
1996, even though the meeting was billed as being under the patronage of
Commissioner Bangemann. European interests at this meeting were represented by
EUROGI and senior academics from the European GI R&D community.