Andrea DiMaio

Some tome ago I posted about whether there is room for a “European cloud”, with reference to on-going discussions on the future of government interoperability in the EU.

Last week, an apparently unrelated event caught my eyes:

The European Commission adopted a legislative package proposing the setting up of an Agency for the long‑term operational management of the Schengen Information System (SIS II), Visa Information System (VIS), EURODAC and other large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice.
The core mission of the Agency would be to fulfil the operational management tasks for SIS II, VIS and EURODAC, keeping the systems functioning 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition to these operational activities, the Agency will also be responsible for adopting the necessary security measures, reporting, publishing statistics, monitoring of research, SIS II and VIS related training and information issues. It will ensure data security and integrity as well as compliance with data protection rules.
A dedicated, specialised Agency will be able to achieve important synergies and economies of scale as all three existing IT systems will be housed in one location, under common management. As a centre of excellence, the Agency will have the potential to be entrusted with the development of new IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice.

The European Commission is already charged with running these systems and this announcement is meant to lead to greater consolidation and rationalization. On the other hand, setting a separate agency, with its own staff and management structure, and a statute that gives some level of independence with respect to traditional European Commission services, begs the question of whether it could morph into something else in the future. Or whether it could be the first of a series of European agencies tasked with rationalizing other aspects of European government IT.

Of course the EU has a clear mandate to run justice and security systems, whereas it has no mandate (yet) to run common infrastructures or applications in areas that are within the responsibilities of each member state. However (read above again) this agency will have the potential to be entrusted with the development of new IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice: so, while the domain remains one where the EU has a  clear say, the actual mandate of the agency is quite flexible. Looking at this in the context of the earlier European Parliament’s resolution setting up a program for interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA) (see earlier post), provides another piece of the jigsaw.

I expect to see more steps toward rationalizing government IT infrastructures across the EU, also as a consequence of budgetary constraints. Could this end up into some form of European cloud infrastructure?