On 23 July 2004, the European Council and Parliament drafted the general regulations in the area of harmonization, publication, and use of geographic information and interoperability between systems in the INSPIRE initiative, which was converted into a mandatory Directive as of 14 March 2007.

In Spain, the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Spain (IDEE) is being promoted by the Geographic Board of the Ministry of Development as a project to integrate the initiatives of the institutions that generate geographic information, developing a decentralized model that is transparent for users.

This nationwide initiative explicitly includes the formation of the corresponding IDEs at the regional and local levels, making a distinction between basic and thematic cartography.