The result of a vote among member states on the end of support of the VHInfo service has democratically resulted in an end date of July 1st, 2025.
For more information see the page on the VHInfo service
On the 1st of September the 2nd meeting of the Resonance Group on the Future of EReg/EUCARIS took place. This Resonance Group has been installed following the agreements of the EUCARIS General Assembly of September 2021 and the EReg General Meeting of May 2022. The online meeting was attended by 17 members and was chaired by Mr Servi Beckers (chair of EReg and EUCARIS).
The meeting started with a short recap on what happened since the EReg GM&AC in Oslo: several meetings of the Joint Working Group took place and a questionnaire was sent to EReg members about the priorities of the work of both the EReg and EUCARIS Secretariat. A legal advisor has investigated the future partnership between EReg and EUCARIS with a focus first on combining the secretariats. One of the possible options is the establishment of a permanent secretariat of EReg.
KBA (Germany) volunteered to help and came up with the CCC-proposal: Closer Cooperation and the Convergence of EUCARIS and EReg. This was presented during the Resonance Group. Furthermore, Ms Idske Dijkstra (EUCARIS secretariat) explained the consequences for the EUCARIS Rules of Procedure and Ms Kim van Driel (EReg secretariat) explained the consequences for the EReg Articles of Incorporation and Internal Rules.
The next step was to submit the new version of the EUCARIS Rules of Procedure to the members of the EUCARIS General Assembly for agreement during the meeting in Tallinn on 29 September. There the EUCARIS General Assembly approved the proposal on changing the Rules of Procedure, making the way ready for formally combining both secretariats. The coming period the Joint Working Group will further work on the plans and ideas, like for example the membership of EReg.
For more information you can contact the EReg Secretariat and/or the EUCARIS Secretariat.
On 29 and 30 September 2022 EUCARIS members came together in Tallinn for the EUCARIS General Assembly. More than 70 colleagues of 31 countries met each other in real life after two years of digital meetings. The two-days conference looked back to the EUCARIS operation in 2021/2022 and looked ahead to 2023 and beyond. Discharge was given by the General Assembly for the activities of EUCARIS Operations in 2021 and also an unanimous agreement was given on the EUCARIS budget for 2023. The Netherlands/RDW was unanimous re-appointed as the “EUCARIS Nominated Party for the Secretariat” for the next three years.
During the Tour de Table all Member States gave an update about their high- and lowlights of the last period and about their plans for 2022/2023. On both days there were several presentations from external speakers of the European Commission, CITA, PCC SEE and Council of Bureaux.
An important subject was the cooperation between EUCARIS and EReg. The General Assembly approved the proposal on changing the Rules of Procedure, which opens the way for formally combining both secretariats.
A main focus for 2023 is to work further on the plans and ideas for the cooperation of EUCARIS and EReg. One of the next steps is combining the EUCARIS General Assembly and the EReg General Meeting, which means that the next General Assembly will not take place in October 2023 but it will be a combined meeting in May 2023 in Stockholm.
The EUCARIS Application itself does not use log4j and therefore is considered not to be affected by the known log4j related security vulnerabilities.
If you run Oracle databases for EUCARIS, than it is possible that log4j is used.
Please check the Oracle website for information on security patches/workarounds.
EUCARIS Operations also advices to check your own infrastructure.
Apache is is the supplier of log4j, but a lot of Java applications do use it for logging purposes which you might not be aware of.
If you have custom / own developped software, please consult your provider / developper.
A list of commercial products using log4j can be found here
Virtual EReg/EUCARIS Academy on the Single Digital Gateway:
On 23 February 2021 the first virtual Academy on the Single Digital Gateway (SDG) took place. It was a collaboration between EUCARIS and EReg. More than 50 participants from 24 countries attended the meeting.
Speakers during this event were the European Commission (Ms Hettel Varik, DG GROW), the Federal Government Service for Policy and Support in Belgium (Mr Pieter Vanhoutgem, FOD BOSA), the Netherlands Vehicle and Driver Registration Authority (Ms Daniëlle Vogel, RDW) and EUCARIS (Mr Roelof de Graaf, EUCARIS Manager Operations). The audience got informed about the impact of the SDG Regulation and the ‘Once-Only’ principle on the registration authorities and the re-registration procedure.
The SDG will facilitate online access to information, administrative procedures and assistance services that citizens and businesses need to get active in another EU country. By the end of 2023 at the latest, citizens should be able to perform a number of procedures in all EU Member States without any physical paperwork. One of these procedures will be the re-registration of a vehicle.
An important aspect of the implementation of the SDG is the ‘Once-Only’ principle. The Once-Only Principle (OOP) will enable public entities to share citizen data with each other, so that people using any public services only have to enter their information once. OOP will enable public administrations in a Member State to use information that citizens or businesses provided in another Member State, thus facilitating online procedures across borders. At the moment the European Commission is working on an Implementing Act for OOP.
If you would like to have any additional information about this event, you can contact the EReg or EUCARIS Secretariat.
Due to BREXIT measurements, the UK no longer participates to the VDL, ERRU, RESPER, CBE and VAT services as of the 1st of January 2021.
Situation UK:
Only for the exchange of tachograph card information based on Council Regulation (EEC) no 3821/85 in combination with the respective AETR Agreement, the TACHOnet connection via TESTA will stay available.
All the other EUCARIS/EU-hub services will be disconnected as from the 1st of January.
– VHInfo, DLInfo, AVI (based on the EUCARIS Treaty);
– RESPER (3rd Driving Licence Directive 20016/126/EC);
– ERRU (Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009, 1072/2009, 1073/2009);
– ERRU/RSI-part (Directive 2014/47/EU) ;
– CBE (Directive (EU) 2015/413);
– VAT (Directive 2010/24 EU and 2011/16/EU, Council Regulation (EU) No 904/2010);
The settings are included in a new version of the configuration file (see also mail attached)
When it comes to the Prüm Council Decisions, the EU-UK Trade Agreement offers a legal base for the exchange of DNA, Fingerprints and Vehicle Data via TESTA. The respective services for the exchange of vehicle data however are not implemented yet by the UK.
When it comes to the services based on the EUCARIS Treaty (VHInfo, DLInfo/AVI), the EUCARIS Operations Team and DVLA are currently looking into the options for a connection via internet.
Situation Gibraltar:
Via internet, via the EUCARIS Operations (EUCOP) Server of the EUCARIS Operations Team, Gibraltar is currently able to request technical vehicle data (VHInfo/AVI) and driving licence data (DLInfo) from the following countries:
– Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France (only technical vehicle information), Finland (only technical vehicle information) Germany, Hungary (only technical vehicle information), Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden (only technical vehicle information) and the United Kingdom.
We have decided to include in the configuration file the situation that Gibraltar is de-authorised for the VHInfo/AVI- and DLInfo service for the abovementioned countries.
On a national level, the respective countries can then decide for themselves to authorise Gibraltar again after the configuration file has been implemented on a national level.
In case your country decides to authorise Gibraltar again please then also inform EUCARIS Operations so a new version of the configuration file can be adapted accordingly.
Release configuration file:
An announcement mail concerning a new version of the configuration file already has been distributed by the EUCARIS Operations Team to the respective IT contact persons in your organizations with the request to assure installation as from the 1st of January (mail attached).
The configuration file first of all is useful to make sure that the respective UK services are not called by mistake when UK is not connected anymore to TESTA. Depending on the error handling of TESTA it could be that the application on your side is waiting for an answer from UK until a time out has been reached. This takes a lot of time and can be prevented upfront by not asking a question to UK. This all will be arranged by installing a new configuration file.
Secondly the configuration file prevents that a service in UK is called by mistake when it is still connected but there is no legal base anymore for the exchange; or vice versa, it is prevented that information is given to UK or Gibraltar while there is no legal base for the exchange.
Successful online workshop on the future of EUCARIS
On 7 July EUCARIS organised an important online workshop on the challenges that lie ahead of EUCARIS in the coming years. Important matters like data-exchange with non-EUCARIS countries and improvement of the governance of the EUCARS network were presented. The workshop was concluded with an inspiring presentation by Mr Ian Grossman, Vice President, Member Services &Public Affairs at AAMVA (American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators) on the challenges AAMVA faced and had overcome in their 80-years of existence. Fifteen EUCARIS (Third) Parties attended the workshop.
The future of EUCARIS will be further discussed in a follow-up workshop and at the General Assembly at the end of October (week 44).
If you want to have more information on the future of EUCARIS or you want to actively participate in this matter, please get in touch with the EUCARIS Secretariat via secretariat@eucaris.net.
First of all we hope that you and your families are keeping safe and well during these difficult times.
Additionally we would like to inform you of the changes that have been introduced in the EUCARIS program in response to the current crisis.
EUCARIS General Assembly
At the beginning of January the EUCARIS Secretariat sent a “save the date” for the EUCARIS General Assembly on 7-9 October in Helsinki (Finland). Additionally in February the EReg Secretariat sent the official invitation for the EReg General Meeting & Annual Conference for the last week of May in The Hague (the Netherlands). In this invitation also the announcement was made for an EUCARIS Future Meeting on 26 May.
Since the beginning of March 2020 many countries have introduced measures to restrict travel to mitigate the risks of COVID-19. A lot of international conferences that were scheduled in the period March – June 2020 have already been postponed. In addition, this week, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands announced that all such events are forbidden until the first of June.
Given the above unfortunately there was no other option for the EReg Advisory Board but to postpone the EReg General Meeting & Annual Conference until October 2020 and for the EUCARIS Secretariat to cancel the EUCARIS Future Meeting.
In order to minimize amount of travel that colleagues need to undertake it now has been decided to organize the EUCARIS General Assembly and the EReg General Meeting & Annual Conference in the same week and at the same venue. By doing so we can remove the need for colleagues who participate in both networks to have to travel to two separate countries within a month.
In consultation with our Finnish hosts and the colleagues from EReg it has jointly been agreed to change the planned date and venue of the EUCARIS General Assembly to accommodate this. The EUCARIS General Assembly and the EReg General Meeting & Annual Conference will now both take place in The Hague, the Netherlands, in the last week of October 2020 (26 to 30 October). The exact dates of this meeting will be communicated to all Members and Invitees of the EUCARIS General Assembly and to all EReg Members as soon as possible.
EUCARIS Technical Working Group (TWG)
The TWG will continue on 21 April via video. During this video meeting it will be discussed how the TWG summer meeting will be arranged.
Thank you for your help and understanding. We hope that you, your colleagues and your families will remain safe and well over the coming months and we hope to see each other soon!!
Best regards,
Kim van Driel and Idske Dijkstra
Secretariat EUCARIS
We are excited to announce that Finland joined the EUCARIS Treaty since 1 December 2019. We welcome Finland as a Treaty Party!
As from January 13th, 2020 EUCARIS Operations started monitoring the availability of the VAT service