Strasbourg, 17/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - In its adoption last Wednesday at first reading of the report by W.G. Van Velzen (EPP-ED, Netherlands) on the proposal for a directive on the re-use and commercialisation of public sector documents, the European Parliament has made its contribution to a sensitive dossier on which the member states are struggling to find common ground (see Europe of 6 December 2002, p.11).
In its resolution, the Parliament is broadening the objective of the proposal by pleading in favour of extending the scope, so as to cover information held by public sector bodies (the Commission proposal refers only to "documents" held by public sector bodies). The Parliament is also introducing a distinction to be drawn between "basic information" and "other information". "Basic information" is defined as originating from democratic states where rule of law prevails, such as legislative texts, court judgements and information on representative bodies. "Other information" is governmental information that does not correspond to this definition. The Parliament has also adopted an amendment requesting that lists of the principle basic data held by member states be made available on the internet (these lists should be accessible free of charge). The proposal aims to establish basic rules on the commercial use of public sector information (collecting and disseminating a range of information in areas such as social, economic, geographical, meteorological, tourist and educational information).