1. e-Parliament Program
Towards structured content for parliamentary texts management:
the e-Parliament program
Presentation to the ODF PlugFest – 17 November, 2016
Gianluigi ALARI | Program manager
CONCEPT Unit, PROJECTS Project Management Service

2. Modernise European Parliament's core parliamentary information systems
program in a slide
Modernise European Parliament's core parliamentary information systems
Parliamentary text production, verification and translation
Information management and provision
Obsolescence of applications

3. Amending process first
Amendments are the core business of the European Parliament
Amendment drafting in MS Word was particularly complex and error prone
Amendment legal & linguistic verification and translation was even more cumbersome
Amendment content and metadata were not directly exploitable out of the document context they appeared in

4. A simple « two column » amendment

5. The beauty (and complexity) of cultural diversity

6. Benefit Map and Operational Enablers
Unique
Repository
Reusable
Services
Digital
Signature

7. The Business components use technical supporting services that are transversal to all XMLised applications of the European Parliament. Their implementation fulfils the operational goals of the program in terms of the management of parliamentary texts like:
• Use XML to structure parliamentary texts (Akoma Ntoso standard, XML4EP and DM-XML).
• Use a single central repository for content created during the entire lifecycle of the parliamentary text production chain (PURE-XML).
• Allow parliamentary texts to be signed digitally (DiSP).
• Create reusable components and services that can be reused for further applications (DM-XML, PURE-XML, DiSP, EPS). 7

8. Inter-institutional Format Committee (IFC)
Define a common format for the documents/content exchanged during the Ordinary Legislative Procedure
Representatives of all EU institutions and chaired by the Publication Office of the European Union
Definition of a Common Vocabulary
Specification of the representation of the Common Vocabulary concepts based on LegalDocML 8

9. Editor for amendments: at4am
at4am: authoring tool for amendments
Covers legislative and non-legislative amendments
In production since 2011, more than 400k amendments

10. Collaborative amendment drafting: DST
DST: Drafting Support Tool
Verification by DG Presidency of amendments created in at4am, in production on selected dossiers since April 2012
Collaboration with Members for drafting amendments, in production on selected dossiers since September 2013

11. Computer assisted translation: cat4trad
cat4trad: XML based Translation Tool
Translation of Committees Agendas, in production since April 2012
Translation of amendments created in at4am and verified in DST is available since April 2015
Feasibility study to open cat4trad to external translators

12. Editor for reports and opinions: at4Lex
at4Lex: authoring tool for legislative texts
Requirements are gathered and analysis is ongoing
Successful technical proof of concept
Rules of procedures in production since September 2016
Own Initiative Draft Repots in acceptance stage

13. Amendment process « As-Was »
DocEP
DocEP
DocEP
DocEP

14. Amendments in dddddd
DiSP

15. Integrated solution for Amendments
Highly technical complex solution, requiring strong collaboration between many departments
First end-to-end parliamentary text production process using service based architecture, enabling a new paradigm for texts production
Drafting, verification and translation of amendment documents in production since April 2015
Amendments for Plenary in pilot from July 2016 Plenary

16. Delivered value Streamlined drafting-verification-translation cycle
Faster and more accurate amendments drafting (MEPs, parliamentary assistants, Committee secretariats)
More efficient amendments verification (lawyer linguists)
Better management of multilingual content (translators)
Improved quality of amendments presentation
Provisioning of structured amendments to publication
Technical and functional program architecture validation

17. Unlocked value and next steps
Ongoing developments
European Parliament Rules of Procedures
Reports creation, verification and translation
Parliamentary Questions (Commission, Council collaboration)
Plenary Verbatim Report
Planned developments
Support to text consolidation Own Initiative and TA/TC
Plenary Voting List and Minutes
Support to Trilogues (Council, Commission collaboration)

18. Gianluigi ALARI | Program manager
CONCEPT Unit, PROJECTS Project Management Service
SCH 06A03 /

19. Amendment services and business stack

20. Enablers: XML Adoption
Selected Akoma Ntoso standard, designed for legislative texts
Participation to Oasis LegalDocML TC
Defined xml4ep rules for Akoma Ntoso adoption
xml4ep ver (Amendments & List)
xml4ep ver candidate
Reports & Opinions, Final & Draft (at4lex)
COM proposal documents (EC & EDIT/DPU)
xml4ep-lib: two layers java xml4ep library

21. Enablers: pure-xml Unique Repository
Parliamentary Unique Repository for XML content
Full-text search & extensible metadata
Content versioning and lifecycle support
Client API and event architecture
Smart labels & tags
Only for text production

22. Enablers: dm-xml document models for XML
Validation against xml4ep schema
Instantiation of XML skeletons
Legislative Procedure metadata integration
Language pre-fill of standard text (terms)
Rendering in PDF, Word, DocEP, HTML, …

23. Enablers: Digital Signature Services - DSS
Support PIN, smart-card, …
Basic services
User authentication(different modes)
Signature request (CUD)
Verify signature in document
Add signature
Certificate management
Time stamp
RCL
Advanced services
Group signature
Barcodes & Barcodes check
Electronic signature (image)

24. Digital Signature Portal: DiSP
DiSP: Digital Signature Portal
In production since late 2012 for committee amendments (for six parliamentary committees)
Built on DSS to ease integration (MEP Portal, GEDA, …)
Signed more than 2000 amendments

25. Enablers: EPS Services
Content storage abstraction layer
Application and information integration
Automatic document transformation (via dm-xml)