INSPIRE Knowledge Base

Slovakia - 2020: Country Fiche

Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • State of Play
    • Coordination
    • Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure
    • Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information
    • Data Sharing Arrangements
    • Costs and Benefits
  • Key Facts and Figures. 
    • Monitoring Indicators
Introduction

The INSPIRE Directive sets the minimum conditions for interoperable sharing and exchange of spatial data across Europe as part of a larger European Interoperability Framework and the e-Government Action Plan that contributes to the Digital Single Market Agenda. Article 21 of INSPIRE Directive defines the basic principles for monitoring and reporting. More detailed implementing rules regarding INSPIRE monitoring and reporting have been adopted as Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/1372 on the 19th August 2019.

This country fiche highlights the progress in the various areas of INSPIRE implementation. It includes information on monitoring 2019 acquired in December 2019 and Member States update.

State Of Play

A high-level view on the governance, use and impact of the INSPIRE Directive in Slovakia. More detailed information is available on the INSPIRE knowledge base.

Coordination

National Contact Point
Name of Public Authority: 
Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic
Postal Address: 

Tajovského 28

975 90 Banská Bystrica

Slovakia

Contact Email: 
Click to email
Telephone Number: 
+421 048 4374 523
National INSPIRE Website: 
http://inspire.gov.sk
MIG Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Martin Tuchyňa
Email: 
martin.tuchyna@enviro.gov.sk
MIG T Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Martin Tuchyňa
Email: 
martin.tuchyna@enviro.gov.sk
Contact Person: 
Martin Koška
Email: 
martin.koska@enviro.gov.sk
Coordination Structure & Progress: 
  • Coordination Structure
    • Coordination of the relevant stakeholders in Slovakia is facilitated on two main levels:
      • Strategy / Main public sector stakeholders’ level represented by Coordination Committee of NSDI (NSDI Council / KR-NIPI)
      • Technical / implementation level represented by Expert Group of NSDI (NSDI Expert Group / ES NIPI). The ES NIPI coordinates the work of ad hoc Technical Working Groups).
    • Main responsibility for the INSPIRE implementation and coordination was assigned to the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic, supported with the Coordination Council (KR NIPI). KR NIPI is representing the main central public authorities, including the representation of local governance.
    • Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic is also in charge of National Geoportal, Spatial Data Registry as well as National INSPIRE website maintenance, communication with the Slovakian stakeholders, communication with European Commission, and provides the primary contacts in both Maintenance and Implementation Groups: MIG (policy) and MIG-T (technical).
  • Progress
    • Overall process of the INSPIRE implementation indicates signals of improvement, but significant amount of the work remains to be done. The process so far, was mainly driven by the efforts in the components of the metadata, partially in network services and interoperability (mainly for INSPIRE Annex 1), together with the rising focus on INSPIRE priority datasets and awareness of the utilisation of the Copernicus programme.
    • Significant amount of the analytical and planning activities took place during the 2019 by the MoE in order to ensure necessary resources with the support from the National projects.
    • Together with the fulfilment of the INSPIRE legal obligations for the harmonised spatial data and services exchange, support for the use of the digital spatial resource becomes of high importance, ensuring the synergy with the eGovernment and Open Data activities.

Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure

  • Recent coordination activities mainly focused on the KR NIPI level as well as in the specific thematic groups (INSPIRE priority datasets, Hydrography, Land Cover & Use and Transport Networks).  
  • In order to ensure MoE can provide sufficient support for the INSPIRE implementation during the 2019 for two national projects, preparation process was completed and implementation phase has started as follows:
    • ESPUS: Effective management of spatial data and services (from 01/2020). This project is mainly focused on the resources, soft skills and implementation support for the stakeholders. Main activities will be focused on methodology framework for spatial data and services management and monitoring (area 1), harmonisation of spatial data and services (area 2),  use cases demonstrating SDI in practice (area 3) and finally awareness raising activities (area 4). 
    • JPPÚS:  Uniform access to spatial data and services (from 09/2019). With this project, MoE will aim to provide the technology infrastructure sufficiently meeting INSPIRE legal and technical requirement as well as providing the support for stakeholders with limited or none own infrastructure.
  • Aside of the project activities further analysis of the current content of the Slovakian NSDI with aim to improve the quality of the metadata, availability of the network services providing the interoperable spatial datasets with clear data sharing provisions will continue, using the coordination framework and where needed appropriate stimulations and available legal enforcement tools.

Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information

  • The overall use of the infrastructure is limited with the quality of the spatial data and services description by metadata and availability of the access to these resources via network services.
  • Based on the outcomes of the survey executed during the Workshop held on requirements and expectations of the providers and users during the Czech and Slovak INSPIRE conference more than half of the participants indicated they are not monitoring the use of their spatial data. Some indicated ongoing use of certain monitoring techniques (e.g. Google analytics) and some are planning to do so. Most of the participants came from public sector, with some representation of private and academia/research & development sector. Interesting outcomes came also addressing the question of motivation to use spatial data, whereas main drivers were identified as „Support to create added value, legal requirements and public interest“.
  • MoE will continue with the activities supporting increased use of the SDI in order to demonstrate the benefits of spatial data and services availability.  

Data sharing arrangements

  • Standardised description of the data sharing arrangements remains as significant issue in Slovakia. Except few cases, data providers are still using specific non-standardised licences as for sharing without restrictions (Open data) as well as for sharing under the restrictions.  
  • First examples of Creative commons standardised licences for Open data are visible in metadatada.
  • There is currently ongoing activity to locate Creative commons licenses (ver.4) to Slovak language, in order to strengthen the usability of this standard licensing framework.
  • Significant issue remains also on user side, as there are no simple tools, allowing filtering the spatial data resources under the unrestricted conditions as on national as well as European level.
  • Coordination effort took place in connection to the transposition of the new PSI directive in connection to the High value datasets.
  • Integration of the open spatial data to the National Open Data portal is also still ongoing.

Costs and benefits

  • The cost and benefits evaluation is based on the information collected in the structured information from the relevant stakeholders. It is important to highlight the information was collected based on the best available information resources collected from the stakeholders provided the information for the year 2019.
  • The total indicative costs related with the INSPIRE implementation:  518 892 € and 2420 person days (Based on information collected by the 08.04.2020).
  • From the Benefits perspective, these were identified only as indirect, although some stakeholders has not identified any benefits yet.
  • Detailed information about the costs and benefits can be accessed via this summary table. Details, based on the information provided by the organisations.
Key facts and figures