On 6 November 2025, the Interoperable Europe Portal Team hosted its User Group Meeting. The online event aimed to help users enhance their experience on the Portal and support content creators in making the most of its tools. It also sought to showcase the links between the Portal’s key spaces and the Interoperable Europe Act, present recent and upcoming updates to the platform, and encourage collaboration through active user engagement.
The agenda of the event was as follows:
- Team introduction
- Meeting objectives
- What is new on the Portal
- Guest speakers on supporting the Interoperable Europe Act
- Claudia Oliveira: Interoperable Europe Board
- Ifigeniya Stoilova: Interoperable Europe Community
- Eleonora Bonel: Interoperability Regulatory Sandboxes
- Coming soon on the Portal
- Feedback/Q&A
- Closing remarks
The meeting opened with greetings from Bernard Claes, DIGIT B2 Business Manager of the Interoperable Europe Portal, who introduced the teams, outlined the meeting’s objectives, and highlighted the importance of ongoing collaboration and user engagement in shaping the Portal’s future. The Portal Team then presented the latest enhancements to the Portal and its features, focusing on an improved user experience and overall platform advancements.
Following that, the participants had the chance to hear from three guest speakers who work on projects that support the implementation of the Act and have dedicated spaces on the Portal. The speakers, from DIGIT’s Interoperability and Digital Government Unit, shared their insights, and the highlights of their presentations were as follows:
Claudia Oliveira, DIGIT B2 Programme Manager, presented the Interoperable Europe Board, a core element of the Act. The space brings together key resources, updates, and collaborative opportunities related to the Board’s work in guiding and coordinating cross-border interoperability of public services across the EU.
Ifigenya Stoilova, DIGIT B2 Policy Assistant, presented the Interoperable Europe Community, a collaborative hub for stakeholders to exchange knowledge, engage in peer reviews, access the Interoperable Europe Agenda, and participate in community discussions and events that advance interoperability across Europe.
Eleonora Bonel, external Policy Adviser at DIGIT B2, presented the Interoperability Regulatory Sandboxes, a structured framework for testing, developing, and validating innovative interoperability solutions in controlled real-world environments through tools such as testbeds, living labs, and regulatory sandboxes, fostering evidence-based regulatory learning and strengthening interoperability across Europe.
The User Group Meeting was concluded with the announcement of key upcoming Portal features: full multilingual support across all 24 official EU languages, and the release of the Application Programming Interface (API) for Interoperability Assessments. Stay tuned to the Portal Team’s News section for updates on these and other new tools that will be introduced to the Portal!
Throughout the event, there were interesting interactions with participants who actively shared their questions and feedback. Below is a recap of the main questions asked during the event, along with the answers provided by the Portal Team:
A1: There will not be an Implementing Act on criteria. The Board adopted the criteria in their last meeting. The first batch of solutions labelled ‘Interoperable Europe Solutions’ should be adopted by the Board on 4 December 2025.
A2: Cross-border regulatory sandboxes involve collaboration between authorities from different EU Member States, particularly in regions that share borders and want to work together on issues such as recycling or smart traffic management. EU law applies in these cases. If a single region within a Member State lacks the capacity to address a specific issue on its own, a regulatory sandbox allows it to involve the relevant regulators from other regions or countries. This approach helps address cross-border challenges, most often related to data exchange, while ensuring compliance with applicable EU legislation. Through the sandbox, participants can learn how EU law applies, test potential solutions, explore better ways to implement them, and engage with the appropriate authorities to refine and scale their approach. Feel free to contact the functional mailbox: EC-IOP-REGULATORY-SANDBOXES@ec.europa.eu. An FAQ page will soon be available to address these questions.
A3: You can use the following form.
A4: The Assessments API will be made available to Member States, and comprehensive documentation will be provided to guide its implementation in local systems and enable full use of its functionalities. The Solution Creation Wizard is currently a feature built for and used within the Portal itself. However, if there is interest in this type of functionality, the Portal’s code is accessible, and it could potentially be adapted for use in other contexts. At present, though, such features remain local to the Portal.
A5: These sandboxes are not an extension of any national sandboxes; they are established under the Interoperable Europe Act. You are encouraged to join the collection and share news about your national sandboxes. While the primary focus is on interoperability sandboxes, we welcome other types of sandboxes as well, including financial ones. On the “Know more” and “Explore” pages, you can create news items and post documents, so we invite you to share any relevant information. However, the main emphasis of the collection remains on interoperability sandboxes.
A6: You can consult the dedicated resources here: Online Trainings | Interoperable Europe Portal.
A7: For updates on the Portal, news items are published here: Portal News. Additionally, minor updates and development progress can be followed by tracking the Pull Requests (PRs) on the Portal’s GitHub repository, as mentioned earlier.
If you missed the webinar or have additional questions, feel free to check the FAQs or contact the Portal Team via the support contact form. The presentation slides are available in the attachment below.
The Interoperable Europe Portal Team would like to thank everyone for your participation and engagement! Stay informed about upcoming events by subscribing to the Portal support collection.
Comments
Where is the recording?
I'm a bit lost as this is a report on a meeting that happened two weeks ago.
I don't mean to be rude but "Interoperability" to my global communities has a timely and cultural meaning. By that I mean,,, this is a journey we are all on. Your team is attempting to include the goings on in 28 places and languages. Its a big ask, we can all understand.
Let me offer this recent video of a meeting in Switzerland where people are discussing the pros and cons of a National Wallet, in German, French and English. The wallet, as your team, and anyone in the world of public service interoperability would know, is the common point of this EC initiative (so long as one is designing inter country/language services to be user/citizen centric).
I'd also be very interested in where you might be hosting the technical discussions. Most of these "public network" designers seem (to me) to be in the National Research and Education Networks. After 25 years, they appear to be trying to figure out how they can approach, and talk to, policy makers without making their eyes glaze over. This one page covers (has discussed) most of the inoperability technical issues (between sectors).
Let us know what you think. All the best. Simon
Hi Simon—thank you for your thoughtful note. As announced at the start of the User Group Meeting, the recording was for internal use only, so it won’t be published. The news post captures the main takeaways; future updates and materials will appear on the Portal’s News and Events pages. For ongoing technical exchanges, please join the Interoperable Europe Community on the Portal and any suitable discussion areas in relevant Collections/Solutions. You're welcome to share relevant resources there, subject to community guidelines.
Petro -- on behalf of the Portal Team