Date: 08-05-19
The EReg General Meeting & Annual Conference took place on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 May 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. About 85 attendees from 29 different countries participated in the programme. The welcome reception on the evening of Wednesday 8 May marked the beginning of two equally beneficial, inspiring and enjoyable days. The programme was concluded by a sightseeing experience around the streets and waters of Lisbon.
Thursday morning started with the General Meeting, where agenda items such as the EReg Annual Report, Work Programme 2019-2022, financial overviews and proposals, a communique on global cooperation with AAMVA & Austroads and the state of affairs of the EReg Topic Groups were presented. And there were elections: Mr Servi Beckers was re-elected as Chairman of the EReg Association for a period of three years and Mr Luís Pimenta was elected as the sixth member of the EReg Advisory Board.
The Annual Conference started with a keynote speech on cyber security as an enabler of digital innovations by Raul Rikk from the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. In his presentation, Mr Rikk spoke about data exchange, challenging aspects and risks, (EU) legislation, e-identity and the example of online voting in Estonia. Mr Gert Jan Holland from RDW, the Netherlands contributed with a speech on different ways in which registration authorities can help the environment, focussing on a system for efficient parking in cities and lower emission zones. Mr Holland concluded by stating this as a challenge that would best be approached internationally, on a European level. Mr Ricardo Tiago of IMT Portugal presented about cooperated, connective and automated mobility through Portugal’s project C-roads.
The second part of the Annual Conference started with sharing best practices in the best practices carousel with contributions of France, Poland and Estonia. After that, all participants took part in the voting procedure for the Member of the Year award, that was handed to Latvia this year!
The Friday morning started with a presentation by Susana Paulino, Vice President of CIECA, on future challenges in the area of driving licences. Ms Paulino was followed by Mr Simo Karppinen from Traficom, Finland, with a presentation on European developments on non-physical driving licences. Ms Bodil Dreyer from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration presented about digital developments around renewing driving licences that also enable Norwegian authorities to take medical conditions into account.
After the coffee break, the final official part of the Annual Conference consisted of updates by four different EReg Topic Groups. There were updates on the current state of affairs in TGI on International Data Exchange by Mr Gert Jan Holland and TGXII on CoC Data Exchange by Mr Marko Sinerkari. Ms Liza Abrahamse presented the recommendations and guidelines of TGXX on Privacy and Data Protection in International Data Exchange. Lastly, Mr Herman Grooters spoke about the preliminary outcomes of an ongoing questionnaire on the harmonisation of registration procedures and data quality, for which a new EReg Topic Group will be set up.
Before everyone travelled back home, the programme was concluded by a very enjoyable and sunny sightseeing tour of the streets and waters of the city of Lisbon. Thank you all for participating and making the EReg conference in Lisbon a success, we hope to see you next year in The Hague!
N.B. Detailed minutes of all formalities, presentations and discussions during the General Meeting & Annual Conference 2019 will be send to the participants and published on the EReg website soon.