ABSTRACT
CERCO (Comité Européen des Responsables de la Cartographie Officielle) is a forum for the heads of 35 European National Mapping Agencies. It was created in 1980 with three missions: mutual information, discussion, and cooperation between European National Mapping Agencies. The chairship of CERCO rotates every two years among the heads of NMAs. CERCO includes several active working groups focusing on geographical information issues of legal and economic affairs, geodesy, updating digital geographical databases, and more recently on quality. Another working group, created in 1991, is considering the concept of a European network for geographical information. That
working group gave birth to MEGRIN (Multipurpose European Ground Related Information Network) in 1995 which aims to stimulate the geographical information market and develop common activities of its members. Following preliminary discussions the Working Group on Quality was created at the CERCO general assembly in September 1997 with the following program of action: ISO 9000, Data quality issues, Quality-measurement algorithms, CEN/TC 287 results implementation, and subcontractors. The Working Group first met in November 1997 and split into three subworking groups: Quality management and ISO 9000; Data quality; and Standards (CERCO WGQ,1997).
