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| About IMI |
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European citizens and businesses benefit every day from the opportunities offered by the single market. However, for single market legislation to work as intended, Member State administrations need to cooperate closely. To support them in their cooperation, the European Commission has developed the Internal Market Information System (IMI). |
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What is IMI? |
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IMI is a secure online application that allows national, regional and local authorities to communicate quickly and easily with their counterparts abroad. IMI is accessible via the internet without the need to install any additional software.
The development of IMI was funded under the IDABC programme (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public administrations, businesses and citizens) with a total budget of € 1,300,000 over a period of five years (2005-2009).
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How does IMI work? |
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IMI helps users:
- find the right authority to contact in another country and
- communicate with them using pre-translated sets of standard questions and answers.
Example:
You are an authority in Ireland who needs information from a Hungarian body – you can select a question in English. The Hungarian authority sees the question and corresponding reply options in Hungarian, but you will receive its reply in English.
Because Member States have been closely involved in devising the system, IMI offers uniform working methods agreed by every EU country.
However, should disputes arise, national or regional IMI coordinators can intervene. The European Commission runs a central IMI helpdesk. |
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Which areas does IMI cover? |
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IMI is designed as a flexible system that can be used for many pieces of single market legislation.
Currently, it covers the following directives:
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Who uses IMI? |
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IMI is used by competent authorities at national, regional and local level in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway who deal with the specific legislation supported by it. Registration in IMI is only open to these authorities and has to be approved by an IMI coordinator.
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