ICI Bucharest – national coordinator for the "Once-Only Principle" project (TOOP)

Engaging public administrations to increase efficiency in the European Single Digital Market

Launching meeting for the Once-Only Principle Project (TOOP)

25-27 January 2017, Tallinn, Estonia

The European Commission launched on January 1, 2017 the project entitled "The Once-Only Principle - TOOP". This project is part of the European Union Action Plan on eGovernment 2016-2020 and will help to increase the efficiency of the digital single market.

The project will ensure that information is provided to public administrations once, irrespective of the country of origin of the company, thus eliminating unnecessary burdens for European businesses that have to repeatedly submit the same data and documents. According to the "Once Only" principle, public bodies should take action to exchange data with various public institutions / authorities / bodies, respecting privacy and data protection rules, both at the national (cross-sectorial) and cross-border level. This state of affairs requires a generic and scalable solution for the interconnection of different systems. Building common bridges between data-consuming applications and data sources such as trade registers without interfering with existing national infrastructures requires an innovative federated architecture on a cross-border, collaborative, paneuropean scale. The development of such an architecture - to connect e-Government registers and architectures in different countries - is the main objective of the TOOP project. TOOP will take into account the existing EU legislative frameworks (EIRA, EIF) and the reuse of the "Building Blocks" developed by the e-SENS project and operated as Connecting Services Europe's Digital Service Infrastructures Facility.

The TOOP project will test the "Once Only" principle for businesses that carry out cross-border activities. The project will pilot in various areas:

• cross-border e-services for business mobility,
• updating the data of connected and connected companies
• naval certificates to connect 60 computer systems in at least 20 countries. Pilots will test federal architecture and will also provide real value to public administrations and businesses by accelerating the provision of services and facilitating SMEs' procedures to easily operate in the digital single market.

TOOP aims to promote cross-border cooperation between authorities and provide scope for control and transparency in cross-border business operations.

TOOP has a budget of 8 million euros, funded by Horizon 2020 of the European Union.

The consortium consists of participants from 21 countries (AT, BE, BG, DE, DK, EE, FI, GR, IT, LT, LU, TR).

Romania is represented in the project by the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics - ICI Bucharest - National Coordinator and National Trade Register Office - ONRC - Partner.

Contact details:

TOOP Coordinator: Robert Krimmer, robert.krimmer@ttu.ee

Press: Katrin Weigend, Katrin.Weigend@bva.bund.de

RO: Monica Anghel: monica.anghel@ici.ro