Following the presentation of the European Commission’s Data Package 2018 [on 25 April], CEEP General Secretary Valeria Ronzitti commented on the proposal for a review of the Directive on the Reuse of Public Sector Information:
 

“CEEP supports the European Commission’s overall objective to set a European regulatory framework that fosters the development of the European data economy. We however have reservations on the proposal for a revision of the PSI Directive as it leads to legal uncertainty regarding ongoing innovation and investments by public services’ enterprises.
 
The Commission’s proposals to differentiate between, on the one hand, data hold by public undertakings and, on the other hand, government data or content owned by cultural institutes, go in the right direction. Indeed, they are not the same as public undertakings’ dynamic services requiring constant reinvestment and adaptation to a competitive market.
 
Nevertheless, the proposed revision widens the scope of the original PSI Directive to public undertakings in new sectors such as water, energy, transport and postal services. This creates an important distortion of competition between public undertakings and private companies which are not included in its scope but operate on the same markets.
 
As the companies which mostly benefit from open datasets are large platforms that want to compete with European local, regional and national public services’ enterprises, it is essential to create a level-playing field also in this regard to protect the rights and the existing high-quality of the services provided by public undertakings.
 
Public services’ enterprises must deliver their services in a cost-efficient way. As such, they should in no way be forced to give out value for free or at marginal costs to other enterprises. We fear that the EC proposal about future delegated acts could force public undertakings to make high-value datasets available for free. This would hinder ongoing innovation in public services’ enterprises by creating legal uncertainty and making investments in own data sets and existing cooperation with start-ups unstable and risky.”

For further information, please contact:

Maxime STAELENS, Communication Officer
Email: maxime.staelens@ceep.eu
Tel.: + 32(0) 2 229 21 40
Website: www.ceep.eu