Last update: April 2025

This compilation of recommended / mandatory ICT standards and specifications shows the effort made by Member States and EFTA countries.

The analysis allows monitoring of behavior from country to country, standard to standard, and highlights the possibility of sharing and reusing evaluations and lists of mandatory / recommended ICT standards and specifications.

Currently, the recommended / mandatory ICT standards and specifications are a total of 627. The previous version listed 855 standards and specifications. This decrease can be explained due to some specifications being dropped by the member states and the adoption of newer ones and for the fact that some member states also use a unique nomenclature for some of the specifications and standards thus creating some confusion.

Based on the total of the standards, it is identified that:

• 432 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 1 country.
• 92 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 2 countries.
• 39 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 3 countries.
• 11 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 4 countries.
• 17 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 5 countries.
• 11 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 6 countries.
• 4 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 7 countries.
• 7 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 8 countries.
• 4 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 9 countries.
• 6 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 10 countries.
• 2 standards are mandatory or recommended in at least 11 countries.
• 1 standard is mandatory or recommended in at least 14 countries.
• 1 standard is mandatory or recommended in at least 17 countries.

It is also possible to see what is the trend in use or recommendation of the standards, this information is shown in the following pie chart, which represents the 44 most recommended standards in the European Union.

The trend in use can be more easily evidenced by comparing the current version with the previous one. The following line chart shows the evolution of the 15 most used standards in the previous and current version of the CAMSS list of standards.

Regarding the disuse or elimination of standards, the following bar chart represents the proportion in terms of standards removed based on the previous version of the list of recommended / mandatory ICT standards and specifications.

Countries like Austria, Germany, Switzerland list recommended / mandatory ICT standards and specifications that may be their own and that sometimes some of these group several international standards into one, thus changing their name.
This is the case of DCAT and SHACL, Switzerland groups them into a single standard called eCH-0200, while SAML renames it eCH-0174.

Challenges:

• There are countries that have not updated the recommended / mandatory ICT standards and specifications for more than 5 years.
• Some countries list recommended / mandatory ICT standards and specifications with variations in their names, that is, sometimes they put characters that the original name does not have or vice versa.
• Multiple recommended standards lists with no year of creation or version control can be found for a country.
• Despite belonging to the same geopolitical group (European Union), there is no general framework to list, update and monitor the recommended / mandatory ICT standards and specifications.
• The aforementioned aspects make the search and curation of the information required to keep track of the recommended standards more complex.

The full list of standards and specifications, including links to the standard catalogs of the Member States, can be found in .xlsx format here.

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