Article 4 5.

Member States shall jointly create, govern, operate, use and maintain a European RIS Environment that provides fairway-, infrastructure-, traffic-, and transport-related services, and shall provide the necessary data. The European RIS Environment shall be accessible for all RIS users and shall be the main platform for the exchange of RIS-related information. It shall contain interfaces for connections with systems of other transport modes and inland ports. Member States shall designate one or more competent authorities responsible for the operation of the European RIS Environment. The European RIS Environment shall allow for the possibility of contributions from third countries whose waterways are connected to the European inland waterway network and which are willing to cooperate and provide their network data, provided that the data are of identical quality and format to that of Member States and that they adhere to the same level of cybersecurity and data protection.