The Internal Market Information System (IMI) is an IT-based network that links public bodies in the

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Asso ...

. It was developed by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

together with the

Member States of the European Union The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are party to the EU's founding treaties, and thereby subject to the privileges and obligations of membership. They have agreed by the treaties to share their o ...

to speed up cross-border administrative cooperation. IMI allows public administrations at national, regional and local level to identify their counterparts in other countries and to exchange information with them. Pre-translated questions and answers as well as

machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...

make it possible for them to use their own language to communicate.

Background

Internal market The European single market, also known as the European internal market or the European common market, is the single market comprising mainly the member states of the European Union (EU). With certain exceptions, it also comprises Iceland, ...

legislation of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

(EU) makes it mandatory for competent authorities in Member States to assist their counterparts abroad by providing them with information. Some legislation also requires communication between Member States and the European Commission (for example for the notification of national implementing measures of

European Union law European Union law is a system of Supranational union, supranational Law, laws operating within the 27 member states of the European Union (EU). It has grown over time since the 1952 founding of the European Coal and Steel Community, to promote ...

). IMI has been developed in order to facilitate this day-to-day exchange of information. IMI was launched in February 2008. Development and maintenance has been funded by the programme

Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations All European countries show eGovernment initiatives, mainly related to the improvement of governance at the national level. Significant eGovernment activities also take place at the European Commission level as well. There is an extensive list ...

(ISA) since July 2010. ISA is the successor to the

IDABC All European countries show eGovernment initiatives, mainly related to the improvement of governance at the national level. Significant eGovernment activities also take place at the European Commission level as well. There is an extensive list ...

program, which initially funded IMI and came to an end on 31 December 2009. IMI is one of the governance tools of the Single Market. Other such tools are Your Europe, Your Europe Advice, Solvit and the Points of Single Contact. IMI applies a " Privacy by Design" approach – integrating privacy and data protection compliance in all stages of the design of IMI – which has been developed in consultation with the

European Data Protection Supervisor The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is an independent supervisory authority whose primary objective is to monitor and ensure that European institutions and bodies respect the right to privacy and data protection when they process p ...

(EDPS).

Main actors

IMI has been rolled out in a decentralised way. Therefore, the practical implementation of IMI is the responsibility of the individual Member States. There are several actors that play a role in the IMI network.

Competent authorities

Competent authorities are the end users of IMI. They are public bodies that have been given the responsibility to deal with certain elements of application of internal market legislation. They can function on national, regional or local level.

IMI coordinators

There is one national IMI coordinator (NIMIC) per Member State, often located in a national ministry. Their task is to ensure the smooth operation of IMI in their country. IMI coordinators may delegate some of their responsibilities to additional coordinators who are in charge of, for example, one legislative area or a geographical region, depending on each Member State’s administrative structures.

European commission

The

is responsible for maintenance and development of the tool, helpdesk services and training. It also manages and supports the network of IMI coordinators, promotes further expansion of IMI and reports on the functioning of the system.

Workflows

IMI offers a number of workflows to its users in order to facilitate different types of administrative cooperation across the Member states of the European Economic Area.

Information requests

When a competent authority needs information from a counterpart abroad, it can send a request for information. This exchange mechanism uses lists of pre-translated questions and answers available in all EU languages. It is also possible to attach documents. Only the competent authorities that are directly involved in an information exchange have access to the content. A practical example of an information request is when a German teacher would like to continue his activities in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. The Portuguese authority needs to verify the authenticity of his scanned diploma. It can then use IMI to send an information request to its partner authority in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. This authority can accept the request and send an answer back to the authority in Portugal. Due to the pre-translated question and answer sets, both authorities can communicate in their own language.

Notifications

Notifications are based on one-to-many information exchanges where authorities can alert or notify one or more competent authorities and/or the

. For example, the

Services Directive The Bolkestein directive or Services Directive, officially Services in the Internal Market Directive''2006/123/EC is a European Union law aiming at establishing a single market for services within the European Union (EU). Drafted under the le ...

requires that Member States alert each other of possible dangers to the health and safety of people or to the environment caused in the provision of services.

Information repositories

IMI information repositories are databases storing specific information for certain policy areas. An example of such a repository is the directory of registers maintained by competent authorities throughout the

. This directory is equipped with multilingual search functions. The content of a repository can be accessed either by a restricted group of competent authorities or by all IMI users.

Legal framework

IMI is used in all Member States of the European Economic Area for the administrative cooperation required by the Directive on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications (2005/36/EC), by the

Directive on services in the internal market The Bolkestein directive or Services Directive, officially Services in the Internal Market Directive''2006/123/EC is a European Union law aiming at establishing a single market for services within the European Union (EU). Drafted under the ...

(2006/123/EC) and, on a pilot basis, by the Posting of Workers Directive. Since November 2012, it provides a repository for information on licence holders for the cross-border road transport of Euro cash and an IT platform for the problem solving network Solvit. IMI is being expanded to cover further legislative areas. For example, the Directive on Patients' Rights in Cross-border Healthcare. IMI aims to "become a flexible toolkit at the service of administrative cooperation, contributing to the improved governance of the

Internal Market The European single market, also known as the European internal market or the European common market, is the single market comprising mainly the member states of the European Union (EU). With certain exceptions, it also comprises Iceland, ...

." The IMI Regulation which came into force in December 2012 is an EU law establishing a comprehensive legal framework for IMI. It provides a complete set of rules for the processing of personal data in IMI and prescribes a method for future expansion of IMI to additional policy areas.

References

External links

The IMI website of the European Commission
* {{Youtube, WV9zX_btPQ8
Annual Report IMI 2011

Regulated Professions Database

European Commission European Economic Area Information systems Information technology organizations based in Europe