The EU’s Internal Market Information System (IMI)

KEY POINTS

• The IMI system is a secure Internet application that allows national, regional and local authorities to communicate quickly and easily with their counterparts in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway about EU internal market law (i.e. the laws relating to the single market that exists between the EU countries and in which the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons is assured, and where citizens are free to live, work, study and do business).
• It helps these authorities to overcome practical difficulties related in particular to differences in administrative culture, the use of different languages and the identification of partners in other EU countries.
• It is a free public service, developed by the Commission available in all EU languages and running since 2008.

Major benefits for the public

By speeding up procedures and improving the communication between public authorities, IMI reduces costs caused by delays and enables authorities to provide a better service to individuals and businesses. As such, IMI is a tool that indirectly helps individuals and businesses to make the most of the opportunities offered by the EU's internal market.

Areas where the IMI is used

• Two examples of directives for which the IMI is used are Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications and Directive 2006/123/EC on services in the internal market.
• Under professional qualifications, the IMI system can be used by an EU country to check the validity of qualifications for professionals wanting to practise in that country.
• In addition to professional qualifications and services, the following are examples of other areas covered by the IMI:
  • posting of workers: IMI supports the cooperation under the Posting of Workers and the Enforcement directives allowing EU countries to exchange information in the field of labour mobility,
  • Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network: IMI supports 11 administrative procedures under the new CPC Regulation, helping consumer protection authorities and other stakeholders to cooperate in an efficient and user-friendly way (see summary),
  • cross-border healthcare,
  • Solvit (to which individuals and businesses can submit complaints about national authorities).
• Thanks to its flexibility, the system can easily be expanded to new areas.
• A list of areas in which IMI is used is available online.

Main functions

IMI offers the following main functions:

• bilateral information exchanges (one-to-one workflow) secure exchanges of information between two competent authorities;
• multilateral information exchanges (one-to-many workflows) allowing authorities to send out information to multiple recipients;
• repositories searchable multilingual databases to share information among IMI actors;
• SOLVIT case handling workflow to support the resolution of complaints from citizens and businesses concerning the application of EU law by public authorities;
• a public interface, allowing external actors to interact with IMI.

Amendments to Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012

Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 has been amended to enable IMI to be used in the context of:

• processing applications for a European professional card (Directive 2013/55/EU amending Directive 2005/36/EC — see summary);
• the posting of workers providing services (Directive 2014/67/EU — see summary);
• the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of an EU country (Directive 2014/60/EU — see summary);
• the requirements for presenting certain public documents (Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 — see summary);
• EU type-approvals for non-road mobile machinery (Regulation (EU) 2016/1628 — see summary);
• the single digital gateway which allows online access to procedures and assistance for individuals and businesses (Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 — see summary); and
• the posting of drivers in the road transport sector (Directive (EU) 2020/1057).

Regulation (EU) 2020/1055 amends the annex to Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012, adding Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 on operating rules for road haulage and passenger transport companies (see summary) to the list of EU acts implemented by means of IMI.

Implementing acts

The Commission has adopted the following implementing acts:

• Implementing Decision 2014/89/EU on a pilot project concerning train driving licences (implementing Directive 2007/59/EC — see summary)
• Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/743 on a pilot project to implement the administrative cooperation rules relating to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of personal data — see summary;
• Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/1253 on a pilot project to implement the administrative cooperation rules set out in Decision 2001/470/EC setting up a European Judicial Network in civil and commercial matters — see summary;
• Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/2212 on a pilot project to implement the administrative cooperation rules set out in Regulation (EU) 2017/2394 — see summary.