The EU issued the guidelines "INSPIRE – Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe" in May 2007. This document constitutes the legal basis for establishing a European Spatial Data Infrastructure and defines the specifications for the national spatial data infrastructures for EU countries.
The guidelines stipulate that all EU countries establish their own national spatial data infrastructure. It also defines primarily the general conditions required for coordinating a European infrastructure. Among others it contains in particular a schedule for adopting different measures. Even though Switzerland is not a member of the EU, the guidelines will have consequences for Switzerland.
A national contact for INSPIRE was created with the objective to influence the execution of INSPIRE as much as possible, to promote the ideas of INSPIRE in Switzerland, and to support COGIS and e-geo.ch in implementing these guidelines conform to the prescriptions in Switzerland.
