Infrastructure for EU spatial information: Agriculture and Fisheries Council, 23 January 2006

Brussels, 24 January 2006

Provisional version of 03rd Council Meeting - Agriculture and Fisheries, Brussels, 23 January 2006

The Council adopted a common position on a proposal for a Directive establishing an infrastructure for the dissemination of spatial information for the benefit of environmental policy and providing public information (INSPIRE). The common position will be forwarded to the European Parliament for a second reading under the codecision procedure (12064/05 and 15148/05 ADD 1).

The draft Directive focuses on information needed in order to monitor and improve the state of the environment, in particular information regarding air, water, soil and the natural landscape.

INSPIRE aims to optimise the use of data already available, by documenting existing spatial data, rendering it more accessible and operable and by dealing with obstacles to the use and sharing of data. The beneficiaries of the Directive will be public authorities, legislators, universities, researchers and the media as well as citizens' organisations.

INSPIRE focuses on environmental policy, but is open for use by other sectors such as agriculture, transport and energy.