Facilitating the availability and re-use of public sector information to develop the potential of the digital economy: such is the subject of a directive that was informally agreed on Tuesday, 22 January, during the negotiations of the Parliament and the Council. This agreement, which will be presented to the national ambassadors on 25 January (vote at the beginning of February), was relatively predictable (see EUROPE 12176).
The new rules provide that public sector bodies will not be able to charge more than the marginal cost of reusing their data, except in very limited cases. These rules will apply to public sector bodies as well as public transport and public service companies.
They will also cover publicly funded research data: Member States will be required to put in place policies for open access to publicly funded research data, while harmonised rules on re-use will apply to all such data made accessible through archives.
However, contrary to the European Parliament’s wishes, they will not apply to private companies providing services of general interest (although a recital encourages “Member States to apply the requirements of the Directive to certain private companies”).
The negotiation meeting, the second in total, lasted less than 3 hours and focused on the processing of high-value data, such as statistical or geospatial data. Lastly, the Annex to the Directive includes high value data sets (geospatial data, Earth observation data, statistical data, and data on the environment, weather, businesses, business owners and mobility) while examples are given in the recitals (e.g. weather forecasts). These sets will be defined more specifically by implementing act and the list will be updated by delegated act.
The deadline for transposition of the text is set at 2 years. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)