The COGI actions Working document E/GIS/49 By Anette Björnsson anette.bjoernsson@cec.eu.int

Structure of the presentation News from the COGI Ordinary and extra-ordinary meetings during spring 2001 Future user needs and sources for GI Raising awareness decision on standards to follow Data policy Actions in the pipeline on-going and “sleeping” activities

Main news from COGI COGI a formal Commission interservice group Next meeting foreseen January 2002 Before the last meeting the secretariat of COGI (GISCO) send a request to the Secretariat-General for the question of creating the COGI as a formal Commission interservice group. The advantage of this is mainly that decisions taken in the group CAN become obligatory for all Commission services to follow. This needs a specific written procedure. Up to now decisions taken in COGI have not had this status. Not all decisions taken in COGI will be made obligatory. It needs to be decided by all members of COGI that a specific decision is of a adequate importance to be formalised.

Two meetings during Spring 2001 One ordinary meeting One extra-ordinary meeting to discuss the E-ESDI initiative from DG ENV Two meetings were held. One was the ordinary meeting from which all the action lines will be presented here. The second one was an extra-ordinary meeting to discuss the E-ESDI initiative from DG ENV. The initiative will be presented later today and I’ll therefore not talk about the content. In general terms the aim of the initiative is to secure the future for geographical information. COGI supported the initiative as it is coinciding with an identical point for the COGI.

User needs for GI Action line 1.1 and 1.3 sub group under COGI first meeting held in July 2001 Sub group has been created to discuss the future needs of the Commission and the availability of geographical data In addition an Expert meeting under a DG ENV initiative (E-ESDI) was held in September 2001. This I’ll get back to.

Available sources of GI Action line 1.2 Report has been carried out additional information The report of available sources of GI was presented at the last ordinary COGI meeting. It was concluded that the report gave already known information and that some companies known by the COGI participants were not mentioned. Therefore the contractor was asked for additional information which will be presented at the next COGI meeting

Raising awareness of GI Action line 2.1 and 2.2 The work on the COGI leaflet has started. A first draft will be ready for the next meeting A demotype of a COGI newsletter site has been developed and presented. The site will be further developed for the next meeting

European reference system and metadata standard Action line 3.1.1 and 3.3.1 The ETRS89 (reference system) and ISO 19115 (metadata standard) have been adopted by COGI Commission procedure started to make them obligatory for all Commission services using GIS

Data policy Action line 4.1.2 and 4.1.1 A sub-group under COGI will be established to discuss the implementation of the data policy adopted at the COGI meeting September 2000

Actions in the pipeline Action line 2.3 (making EC-GIS available) web page created Action line 3.1.2 (European projection system) pending on a technical question Action line 3.1.3 (European grid system) the TANDEM project The JRC has developed a web-page (www.ec-gis.org) which is used to store relevant documents and information on GI The definition of a European projection system could not be taken as the best technical solution identified is not supported by the GI-tool from ESRI used in the Commission. The current version of ArcGIS is based on a sphere where as the best solution found is to be based on a spheroid. In the next version of ArcGIS this problem will be solved. The task to define a European grid system in a statistical context has been analysed in the TANDEM project. This will be presented and discussed this afternoon.

On-going and sleeping activities Action line 1.4 (follow-up of GI projects) Action line 5.1 (best practices) Waiting for the time being Action line 1.5 (definition of global needs) Action line 3.2 (coherent interface) The follow-up of implementation of specific GI is together with the exchange of best practices (action line 5.1) on-going procedures For the time being the definition of global need s and the coherent interface with Commission’s external users are waiting as the focus has been more on the decision on standards, the formalising of the COGI group and the future of the GI