Last update: 03/2004
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What is DOCS?
Objectives
How does it work?
Achievements
Who benefits?
The role of IDA
Technical information
Documentation
What is DOCS?
DOCS is a set of software applications, office automation tools, exchange formats and harmonisation activities developed within the framework of the IDA Programme. They are designed to modernise the exchange of official (e.g. legislative) documents between the EU institutions on the one hand, and between the institutions and national administrations on the other. Due to its highly inter-institutional nature, the project is managed with the assistance of a group made up of EU institutions representatives, the so-called 'e-doc' group. Member States are informed of progress and results of direct interest to them.
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Objectives
The capacity to exchange official documents in a timely and efficient manner is pivotal to the workings of the EU and national administrations. There is also a need to improve the whole circulation of - and access to - official Community information. This need is not limited to inter-institutional lines of communication, but extends to relations with the Member State Representations, Governments and National Parliaments. The modernisation and simplification of inter-institutional procedures is also a key prerequisite to improving access by citizens and business operators to EU law and other official documents to make the whole decision-making system more transparent.
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How does it work?
The process of improving electronic interchanges of official documents started in the mid-Nineties, at a time when the EU institutions were initiating a first process of internal administrative reform. Since then, work undertaken is closely coordinated with the parallel modernisation processes being carried out within the EU institutions. As part of these processes, consolidated inter-institutional procedures and management systems are being set up and electronically interconnected.
Reliable and stable document formats are being defined and regularly updated. This also includes harmonising the metadata describing legislative texts and their structures through the definition of common principles and languages, bearing in mind the specific needs of multilingualism, establishing links between community and national legislative databases and harmonising document referencing. More recently, appropriate mechanisms are being taken into account to guarantee authenticity and legal validity by using electronic signatures.
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Achievements
- Within DOCS, a number of sub-projects involved in improving official document management processes have been developed. These include:
- LegisWrite - advanced OA (Office Automation) tool assisting legal drafting, linguistic synchronisation, structure and quality check, text consolidation and providing models for all types of Community texts;
- Greffe 2000 (application): the Commission's electronic document register for transmitting Commission initiatives. An example of a working e-procedure involving all Directorates General and other institutions in the legislative domain;
- Parliamentary Questions (application): another example of full electronic procedures between the European Parliament and the Commission;
- Trusted exchanges of official documents and e-signatures;
- Institutions websites metadata and link management;
- Uniform document locators;
- EULEX, a demonstrator to liaise EU directives and related national legislation.
- Several of these projects are now complete for a growing number of documents types and have resulted in revised information flows from paper to electronic formats. This has in turn increased quality, decreased delays and radically improved transmission times.
- During 2001 and 2002 more than 400,000 pages were transmitted to the EU Office of Official Publications via Greffe 2000. The estimated saving is around € 3 million annually. Similarly, each receiving institution made considerable savings due to the suppression of millions of paper copies and thousands of retyping hours.
- A cost-benefit analysis was launched, covering the 1999-2002 period, in order to provide more accurate figures about quantitative savings and qualitative benefits.
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Who benefits?
Citizens: For Europe to be more transparent and closer to its citizens, Community legislation must be understandable to those it is intended for. Tools such as DOCS contribute to making text clear and coherent, indirectly ensuring that legislation is applied uniformly in all the Member States.
Public Administrations: (Administrators) Besides the European Commission, the main beneficiaries are the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Electronic data exchange improves the whole circulation of (and access to) official Community information. It ensures greater transparency and re-use of information by automated tools that collate, analyse and abstract meaningful information from documents. National governments also benefit as it allows for interconnectivity of databases assisting the Community directive's implementation. Systems such as EURLex or PRELEX are direct beneficiaries due to the availability of reliable electronic versions of legal texts.
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The role of IDA
IDA has funded the inter-institutional elements of the projects (e.g. defining exchange formats and developing / adapting local systems for importing or exporting data) and the specific interfaces or gateways resulting from IDA developments. Initial studies, extended coverage of more document types were also financed by IDA, as well as some training and support for new tools.
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Technical information
|
Project start date |
1997 |
|
Project completion date |
2004 |
|
Project status |
Development / implementation |
|
IDA budget |
1999 € 1,155,000
2000 € 1,537,000
2001 € 1,481,000
2002 € 1,889,000
2003 € 1,300,000 |
|
Responsible service |
General Secretariat of the Commission; Informatics Directorate of the Commission (LegisWrite) |
|
Project coordinator |
François Kodeck |
|
Contact |
idabc@ec.europa.eu |
|
Countries involved |
All EU Member States |
|
Public website |
EUR-Lex
PRELEX |
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Documentation: |
Print
Communication and management of official documents - Annual Report 2003 (PDF)
