16 December 2020 / 14:00 - 16:45

Online meeting via Webex

Event summary

The CEF eDelivery team is organising the second subgroup meeting focusing on the work on the future of eDelivery. This work will include a focus on REST-based API extensions to eDelivery and possible use of Blockchain technology.

If you have any additional comments or questions on the workshop, or generally concerning CEF eDelivery, the Service Offering or grant funding, please reach out to us via Service Desk.

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Participants

European CommissionMember States' representatives
  • Maya Madrid (DG CNECT H4) – CEF eDelivery Business Owner
  • Bogdan Dumitriu (DIGIT D3) – Project Manager « Future of CEF eDelivery »
  • Maarten Daniels (DIGIT D3)
  • Vlad Veduta (DIGIT D3)
  • Jerry Dimitriou (DIGIT D3)
  • Manon Thonnard (DIGIT D3)
  • Ines Costa (DIGIT D3)
  • Marcio Sampaio (DIGIT D3)
  • Monica Posada (JRC B6) – Project Manager « API guidelines for government »
  • Lorenzino Vaccari (JRC B6)
  • Erik Hagen, Norway, DIFI - Agency for Public Management and eGovernment
  • Hans Sinnige, The Netherlands, RINIS Foundation
  • Henrik Bengtsson, Sweden, DIGG (Agency for Digital Government)
  • Irma Pardijs, The Netherlands, RINIS Foundation
  • Fredrik Nordlander, Sweden, DIGG
  • Klaus Luttich, Germany, Governikus
  • Judie Attard, Malta, MITA - Malta Information Technology Agency
  • Marco Holz, Germany, FITKO
  • Martin Volcker, Sweden, DIGG (Agency for Digital Government)
  • Petteri Kivimaki, Estonia, Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS)
  • Piet van der Berg, The Netherlands, RINIS Foundation
  • Risardas Bedulskis
  • Roberto Polli, Italy, Italian Government Digital Team
  • Roger Gast
  • Sven Rasmussen, Denmark, DIGST - Danish Agency for Digitalization



Draft Agenda 

Item

Time

Who

PresentationsNotes

Welcome and introduction 

10 mins

Maya Madrid (CEF eDelivery Business Owner, DG CNECT H4)

CEFeDeliveryWorkingGroupMeeting16122020_v1.pdf




  • Maya Madrid welcomed the participants, introduced the agenda and provided a brief overview of the action’s objectives, previous and upcoming work.

Update on REST API profile:

  • Presentation of early work on REST API profile
  • Presentation of pilot architecture
  • Timeline and next steps

80 mins

Bogdan Dumitriu, Jerry Dimitriou, Vlad Veduta (CEF eDelivery Technical team, DIGIT D3)

  • Bogdan Dumitriu introduced the work that was done on the REST API profile and gave the floor to Jerry Dimitriou who presented the REST API profile from a technical perspective (cf. slides).
  • Bogdan Dumitriu provided an update on the pilot (objectives, architecture overview and functionality) (cf. slides). Bogdan shared the timeline and additionally mentioned that the team is currently documenting the analysis that is being conducted in order to define the profile and that this will accompany the profile. This document will provide not only the conclusions, but also the options that were considered, thus giving more background information on the decisions taken.
  • Roberto Polli requested to have a copy of JADES profile by ETSI.
  • ​Roberto Polli mentioned that OAS does not mandate json schema. Other schemas could be used but in this case they cannot be defined in OAS.

Update on JRC's work on API guidelines for government

  • Presentation of deliverable on API management & discoverability
20 minsMonica Posada, Lorenzino Vaccari (JRC B6)CEFeDeliveryWorkingGroupMeeting16122020_v1.pdf
  • Monica Posada presented an update on the JRC’s work on API guidelines for government (cf. slides). Monica also presented the indicative timeline and mentioned that she will share the deliverables and encouraged the working group to provide feedback on it. 
  • Lorenzino Vaccari provided an update on the interim deliverables (API technical essentials: management, versioning and discoverability).
  • Monica presented the next steps including the next event on 28 January 2021 about “Legal essentials - API & data portability (GDPR and other legal context)”.
  • Roger asked whether this project looks at aspects to how distribute/share information in real time between different organisations. For instance, through publish/subscribe and lookup pattern that is strong connected to the event-driven design pattern.
  • Roger also asked for clarifications regarding events.  
  • Lorenzino mentioned that this specific project focuses on REST API architectural style. The team observed that REST APIs can be used in different domains and use cases but that within this project event driven architectures (EDAs)will not be treated in depth, although there is growing number of people wanting to describe event-driven APIs.
  • Monica Posada will try to identify specific experts within the attendees of the API4IPS  multi-stakeholder that could discuss this kind of technical essentials’ questions. 
  • Martin Volcker asked when a new meeting of the Informal Cooperation Network for eDelivery could take place.
  • Bogdan answered that the team postponed organizing a meeting of the network until it had news on the upcoming Digital Europe Programme (DEP) that will ensure the funding and strategy for eDelivery now that CEF is over. A meeting would be planned in 2021 as soon as the team has sufficient clarity so that it can properly inform the community.
  • Martin Volcker asked what information these APIs contribute to and whether ‘addressing’ is part of the scope?
  • Bogdan clarified that the goal is to come up with a REST API profile and not an IT system per se. 
Break (10 mins)

Q&A on REST API profile

20 mins

Monica Posada and Lorenzino Vaccari, JRC B6

Meeting participants to contribute to the discussion


  • No questions were asked.

Update on integration with CEF EBSI (blockchain):

  • Update on functional specifications
Timeline and next steps		20 minsBogdan Dumitriu, Vlad Veduta (CEF eDelivery Technical team, DIGIT D3)CEFeDeliveryWorkingGroupMeeting16122020_v1.pdf
  • Bogdan presented the update on Integration with CEF EBSI (Blockchain) (cf. slides) and explained that, given that there were no comments after the meeting of September 2020, there is no change on the first scenario. Bogdan mentioned that a new version of the document would be sent after the meeting in order for the working group to provide feedback on the new scenario that was introduced.
  • Bogdan then invited participants for questions, but no questions were asked. 
  • Bogdan finally thanked all participants and closed the meeting.
Table 1:


Useful links:

About the ISA² action on Innovative Public Services:

In the ISA² Work Programme for 2020, the action on Innovative Public Services has, among others, the objective of developing relevant legal, organisational and technical artefacts trialled through an extension and combination of the CEF eDelivery building block with blockchain based transactions’ log and a REST-based profile (a.k.a. APIs approach), that support new patterns of data access by request and data sharing.


The work related to the REST-based profile will take as input the JRC study on APIs4DGov that analysed the API technological landscape and its standards and technical specifications for general purpose use. This aims to support the definition of stable APIs for digital government services, avoiding the need to develop ad hoc solutions and helping stakeholders in the identification and selection of such solutions.


The scope of the ISA² action will be to develop the following:

  • A set of guidelines and specifications for establishing interoperable REST-based APIs for service invocation and publication of both open and protected data. Sample library implementation for API’s as well as software supporting central/core services such as service catalogues and service discovery could be also in scope.
  • Extension of eDelivery with other building blocks and innovative technical approaches such as blockchain and APIs. Should the pilots be successful, the CEF eDelivery building block will be enriched with a REST-based profile and a blockchain-based log of transactions. Every element will be modular so that it can be used in combination with the existing AS4-profile (of eDelivery) or on its own.


About CEF eDelivery:

The CEF eDelivery building block helps public administrations and businesses (and indirectly citizens) to participate in eDelivery Messaging Infrastructures which facilitate organisation-to-organisation messaging by enabling their systems to interact with each other in a secure, reliable and trusted way. The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Digital Programme, is currently promoting the adoption of common standards in the eDelivery Messaging Infrastructures in different policy domains (Business Registers, eJustice, eProcurement, etc.).