What requirements does the SDG regulation set for authorities?

Your Europe portal provides information in cross-border situations

The Your Europe portal is a website maintained by the European Commission that provides information to businesses and citizens on different situations, such as moving to another EU member state or carrying out business in another EU member state.

According to the SDG regulation, the Your Europe portal must provide EU citizens and businesses with information on

• their rights
• their obligations
• the rules of the EU single market
• the procedures of the SDGr
• assistance services.

The portal’s editorial staff updates the website with the EU’s shared content. EU member states are responsible for their own national information contents, which are reported as websites to the Your Europe portal’s link register. Some of Finland’s information is obtained from the Suomi.fi, which uses the Finnish Service Catalogue as its information source.

The SDG regulation requires the production of information

Authorities must produce information on

• the areas defined in Annex I to the SDG regulation and the services related to them
• procedures in Annex II and the services related to them
• assistance services in Annex III.

Authorities must

1. produce the information on their own website and in the Finnish Service Catalogue
2. link the website to the Your Europe portal’s link register.

For more detailed instructions on producing information and linking it to the link register, contact the Digital Single Market team. 

The SDG regulation’s assistance services

Annex III to the SDG regulation defines the assistance services that EU member states must provide across borders and of which there must be information in the Your Europe portal.

Assistance services include

• Points of single contact
• Product Contact Points 
• Product Contact Points for Construction
• National assistance centres for professional qualifications
• National contact points for cross-border healthcare
• European network of employment services (EURES)
• Online dispute resolution (ODR).

Contact the Digital Single Market team for more detailed information on organising assistance services

The SDG regulation’s procedures and evidence

A procedure refers to the SDG regulation’s citizen or business service process with one or more authorities in situations specified in the regulation. For example, applying for student benefits or carrying out business in another EU member state may be procedures.

A procedure may include one or more services. For example, carrying out business may require applying for several business permits from several different authorities. When applying for student benefits, on the other hand, the person only needs to apply for financial aid for students from Kela.

Evidence refers to information from authorities that may be required as an attachment to or in connection with a procedure. Evidence includes a Trade Register extract or a certificate confirming that you have been admitted to a study place. Certificates of employment, however, are not the SDG regulation’s certificates because they are not information from authorities.

The SDG regulation’s requirements for services

In the SDG regulation, services are divided into its Annex I areas and Annex II procedures, whose requirements differ from each other.

• The services of Annex I areas must be provided electronically across borders if they are already provided electronically at the national level. In addition, if a service of the annex’s subjects is digitalised, cross-border service use must be enabled.
• The services of Annex II procedures must be digitalised across borders. In addition, their e-services must be connected to the OOTS if the procedure requires evidence that can be retrieved from an authority’s database.

Information on the services of both Annex I areas and Annex II procedures must be available on the Your Europe portal.

The services of the annexes may be partly the same. 

The Once Only Technical System (OOTS)

The OOTS is the EU’s internal ecosystem of systems in which authorities can share and receive evidence required in different administrative procedures across borders.

It consists of

• other EU member states’ systems
• shared components produced by the European Commission
• the Finnish system.

The administrative procedures are specified in Annex II to the SDG regulation.

For example, when a Finnish person wants to start working in a regulated profession in another EU member state, the authority recognising the professional qualifications needs the information from Finnish databases at least regarding the professional qualifications recognised in Finland and completed studies.

In this case, the information is transferred at the request of the person from Finnish databases, such as the Koski register, to the e-services of the professional qualification authority of another EU member state using the OOTS. Similarly, the e-services of the Finnish authorities granting equivalent professional qualifications are connected to the OOTS so that they can receive information from other EU member states’ databases.

User journey

Services of Annex I to the SDG regulation

The services of the areas of Annex I to the SDG regulation must be provided electronically across borders if they are already provided electronically at the national level. If a service of Annex I subjects is digitalised, cross-border service use must be enabled.

Services and databases of Annex II to the SDG regulation

The services of the procedures in Annex II to the SDG regulation must be

1. digitalised
2. provided across borders
3. integrated into the OOTS if the procedure requires evidence that can be retrieved from an authority’s database.

In addition, the evidence databases of procedures in Annex II must be integrated into the OOTS.

If the authorities in Finland introduce a new database whose information can be utilised in the procedures in Annex II to the SDG regulation, it must be integrated into the OOTS.

The instructions for integrating a database to the OOTS will be produced when the technical information related to the integration are clarified.