In 2014, the European Commission conducted a mid-term evaluation of the implementation of the INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) Directive. The evaluation consisted of a public survey, the testing and validation of the technical INSPIRE components (metadata and services) and an internal desktop study. It also included an assessment of data sharing measures and policies already implemented operationally in the Member States.

For the testing and validation of the technical components, a sample-based approach was applied to select, test and validate existing INSPIRE components in all EU Member State countries against the INSPIRE monitoring information. The testing started from the declared data sets and services and their characteristics (e.g. conformity) by the Member States, trying to find the resources back in the European geo-portal and test them against the INSPIRE specifications using the EC JRC Resource Browser tool. Explanations for not finding data sets and services, or for not being able to access them were sought for by contacting data and service providers in order to better understand e.g. implemented limitations to public access.

Based on these first insights and after the European Commission sent a letter to Member States to ask for further clarifications and plans for action, Belgium performed in 2015-2016 a more extensive validation exercise of all its INSPIRE metadata and service resources. Existing testing and validation tools were used and compared, including the INSPIRE resource browser, the Spatineo tools and others. The exercise revealed several issues. First, none of the tools is ‘perfect’ and cover all INSPIRE validation requirements. Second, and even more important, the results of the testing and validation should be handled with care. Indeed, testing and validation should be done for different purposes. For data and service providers, the results help to find deficiencies and improve the quality of the data, services and their metadata. For SDI/INSPIRE governance bodies the results provide input to understand the major issues and to take the appropriate actions.

The paper will present how the testing and validation was done, provide an overview of the results, some lessons learned and the way the results are being used to steer the INSPIRE implementation process. Did INSPIRE improve access and sharing of geospatial resources in practice? What are the major issues and barriers that persist? What are Member States currently doing to improve access and sharing?