Commission staff working document - Accompanying document to the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the re-use of Public Sector Information - Review of Directive 2003/98/EC – [COM(2009) 212 final]
Date: 2009-05-07
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: data collection, disclosure of information, dissemination of information, exchange of information, mobile phone, national implementing measure

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 7.5.2009 
SEC(2009) 597 

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

Accompanying document to the 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

on the re-use of Public Sector Information 

– Review of Directive 2003/98/EC – 

[COM(2009) 212 final] 

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   EN 

 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

Accompanying document to the 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

on the re-use of Public Sector Information 

– Review of Directive 2003/98/EC – 

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1. 

2. 

2.1. 

2.2. 

2.3. 

3. 

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 5 

Public Sector Information ............................................................................................ 5 

Economic aspects ......................................................................................................... 5 

PSI and Web 2.0........................................................................................................... 9 

PSI as a driver of innovation and sustainable growth ................................................ 10 

The Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive.......................................................... 11 

3.1. 

Key provisions ........................................................................................................... 11 

3.1.1.  Clear procedures to deal with requests for re-use ...................................................... 12 

3.1.2.  Upper limit for charging............................................................................................. 12 

3.1.3.  Transparency of conditions applicable to re-use and means of redress ..................... 12 

3.1.4.  Obligation to avoid discrimination between market players in the conditions for re-

use .............................................................................................................................. 12 

3.1.5.  Prohibition of exclusive arrangements, with the exception of the exclusive rights 

necessary for the provision of a service in the public interest ................................... 12 

4. 

4.1. 

4.2. 

4.3. 

5. 

5.1. 

5.2. 

6. 

Transposition of the Directive.................................................................................... 13 

Different approaches to implementation.................................................................... 13 

Delays in implementation, revised laws..................................................................... 13 

Complaints, infringement procedures ........................................................................ 13 

Results of Member State and stakeholder public consultation on the review of the 
Directive..................................................................................................................... 14 

Results of the Member State consultation on the review of the Directive................. 14 

Results of stakeholder consultation on the review of the Directive........................... 15 

Evaluation of the scope and impact of the Directive ................................................. 17 

6.1. 

Impact of the Directive............................................................................................... 17 

6.1.1. 

Increase in re-use of PSI ............................................................................................ 17 

6.1.2.  Effects of the principles applied to charging.............................................................. 19 

6.2. 

Scope of the Directive................................................................................................ 21 

6.2.1.  Cultural institutions.................................................................................................... 21 

6.2.2.  Educational institutions.............................................................................................. 22 

6.2.3.  Public service broadcasting institutions ..................................................................... 23 

6.3. 

Re-use of Commission information ........................................................................... 23 

6.3.1. 

Identify, publish, promote – strategy ......................................................................... 23 

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6.3.2.  Examples of re-use of Commission information ....................................................... 24 

7. 

7.1. 

7.2. 

7.3. 

7.4. 

7.5. 

7.6. 

8. 

8.1. 

8.2. 

8.3. 

Follow-up to implementation..................................................................................... 25 

National PSI bodies/dispute settlement bodies .......................................................... 25 

Licensing policy ......................................................................................................... 26 

Exclusive deals/arrangements .................................................................................... 26 

Public task .................................................................................................................. 27 

Cooperation PSIH – Re-users .................................................................................... 28 

Technological issues .................................................................................................. 29 

Overview of relevant European and international PSI-related initiatives.................. 30 

Bilateral contacts, PSI expert group........................................................................... 30 

Awareness-raising actions and studies under the eContentplus/CIP programmes .... 30 

Associated Community initiatives ............................................................................. 31 

8.3.1.  SEIS – Shared Environmental Information System................................................... 31 

8.3.2. 

INSPIRE Directive..................................................................................................... 31 

8.4. 

International activities (OECD) ................................................................................. 32 

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1. 

INTRODUCTION 

This  staff  working  paper  accompanies  the  Communication  from  the  Commission  to  the 
European  Parliament,  the  Council,  the  European  Economic  and  Social  Committee  and  the 
Committee of the Regions on the Re-use of Public Sector Information – Review of Directive 
2003/98/EC–. 

Its aim is to present facts, evidence and examples relating to the re-use of PSI that are relevant 
to the issues dealt with in the Communication. 

The  Communication  and  this  staff  working  paper  have  greatly  benefited  from  consultation 
and interaction with the relevant stakeholders. A public online consultation on the review of 
the Directive was held from May to September 2008. In addition, a similar consultation on the 
review of the Directive was held for EU Member States. Section 5 presents the results of these 
consultations. A large number of workshops on PSI were held in EU Member States in 2007 
and  2008,  which  included  stakeholder  participation  (in  particular  private  geographical 
information  and  meteorological  firms,  commercial  publishers  and  industry  associations).  In 
parallel,  a  considerable  number  of  bilateral  contacts  were  taken  up  with  publishers,  private 
firms, government agencies and commercial associations. 

2. 

PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION  

Public authorities produce, collect and hold vast amounts of public sector information. PSI is 
considered  to  be  the  single  largest  source  of  information  in  Europe,  covering  widely 
diverging  sectors  and  expanding  across  all  areas  of  government.  For  example,  financial, 
business  information  and  statistics  are  regularly  collected  by  public  sector  organisations. 
Company registers are maintained by the public sector. Legal information and administrative 
information  are  by  their  specific  nature  prime  examples  of  public  sector  information. 
Geographical information is relevant to transport, tourism and many other uses and is widely 
produced by public sector agencies. 

The  tools  of  the  information  society  make  it  possible  for  a  substantial  amount  of  the 
information produced by the public sector to be potentially re-used in the market place. PSI is 
behind the development of new added-value services,  products and applications created 
by private companies by combining data from different sources. 

2.1. 

Economic aspects 

Recent studies indicate that the economic value of PSI is substantial, although measuring its 
value  accurately  is  not  a  straightforward  task.  The  MEPSIR  study  (2006)  contracted  by  the 
Commission,  for  example,  puts  the  overall  market  size  for  the  re-use  of  PSI  in  the 
European Union at €27 billion. 1 Other recent figures available from the UK Office of Fair 
Trading (OFT) – The commercial use of public information (CUPI) Report2 – indicate that the 
contribution of PSI to the UK economy alone reached €730 million in 2006 .  

1 
2 

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/mepsir/final_report.pdf. 
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/poi/oft-cupi.pdf. 

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The 2008 Capgemini “Information Management Report”,3 of which PSI can be considered to 
be  an  important  subset,  noted  that  the  failure  to  exploit  information  assets,  i.e.  the  values 
and  behaviours  associated  with  how  they  collect,  use,  manage  and  share  information,  was 
costing the UK private and public sectors £46 billion and £21 billion respectively.  

Figures on the main economic markets re-using PSI also make for very illuminating reading. 
The number and volume of new services associated with Geographical Information (GI) is 
skyrocketing.  The  demand  for  maps,  navigation  services  and  location-based  services  is 
increasing by the day. The European Cartographic market, a sub-set of the GI market, was 
already  valued,  according  to  industry  sources,  at  €1.5  billion   in  2005.4  The  study  on 
“Prospects  for  Business  Models  of  German  Companies  in  the  European  and  Global  Geo-
information Market” calculated that the value of the geo-information market in Germany in 
2007 was €1.5 billion 5 and that it has grown by approximately 50% since 2000. 

The digital maps/satellite navigation industries have experienced substantial changes in recent 
years, and access to and re-use of cartographic and cadastral information has been vital to the 
development  of  their  business.  It  is  estimated  that  35  million  portable  navigation  devices 
(PNDs) were sold in 2007, twice as many as in 2006, making personal navigation one of the 
fastest-growing areas in consumer electronics.6 The interest in and value of this industry was 
highlighted  when  Nokia,  the  world’s  largest  mobile  phone  maker  acquired  Navteq,  the 
world’s biggest maker of digital maps, for €5.7 billion in 2007 . Similarly, TomTom, a leading 
PND  manufacturer  from  the  Netherlands,  recently  bought  Tele  Atlas,  the  next  biggest 
mapmaker, for €1.8 billion. 

Nokia is manufacturing phones that can pick up signals from global positioning system (GPS) 
satellites,  and  is  already  including  supplementary  –  location-based  –  services,  which  are 
expected to make up the main share of future revenues. Drivers, for example, can subscribe to 
real-time traffic information that allow them to anticipate traffic jams or check fuel prices at 
the petrol stations that appear on their maps. Nokia and TomTom have made moves to own 
the maps they use so as to be in control of the revenues generated by location-based services.  

Infoterra Group 

Infoterra Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EADS Astrium, with subsidiaries in France, 
Germany,  Hungary,  Spain  and  the  United  Kingdom.  It  delivers  up-to-date,  accurate  and 
timely geo-information data and specialised GIS tools, which are key elements for improved 
predictions  and  better  risk-based  decisions  for  flood  risk  management,  assets  mapping  and 
reconstruction planning. Many of their products are based on the re-use of public data from 
various countries aggregated with private data sources and then refined.  

In  addition  to  big  companies,  several  SMEs  have  emerged  in  this  sector,  displaying  a  high 
degree  of  dynamism  and  growth  and  creating  and  developing  niche  markets.  Intelligent 
Addressing is a good example. 

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http://www.harnessinginformation.com/newsevents.php. 
EuroGeographics 2006 Report. Unpublished. 
http://www.micus.de/pdf/Press_Release-GIW-study.pdf. 
The Economist. “Satellite navigation” Oct 4th 2007. 

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Intelligent Addressing 

Intelligent  Addressing  Ltd  has  become  an  information  management  specialist  and  data 
provider, focusing on land and property data, specifically addressing spatial referencing in the 
UK,  whereby  accessing  and  re-using  addresses  is  a  key  data  search  attribute.  The  company 
was  set  up  in  1999,  and  has  grown  substantially  in  recent  years,  developing  highly  specific 
added  value  products  such  as  cleansing,  matching  and  de-duplicating  large  address  datasets 
for  clients  in  a  wide  range  of  sectors,  including  real  estate  agencies,  financial  services 
providers, insurance and central government.  

These growth trends in the GI sector were confirmed in the Assessment of the re-use of PSI 
undertaken on behalf of the Commission, where 46% of GI public sector holders reported that 
their total income had increased since 2002, and similarly 66% of GI re-users (private firms) 
reported that their income had grown in recent years. 

The online European market for legal information (which includes legal, tax and regulatory 
information)  was  valued  at  €730  million, 7  including  a  14%  increase  in  2005.  The 
Groupement  Français  de  l’Industrie  de  l’Information  (GFII)  reported  that  the  French  legal 
information  market  was  worth  €246  million, 8  an  increase  of  17%  compared  to  2007.  The 
projected growth of this market for the coming 5 years is set at 7% per annum.9 

El Derecho Editores 

The  Spanish  Council  of  the  Judiciary  (CENDOJ),  which  has  the  task  to  care  for  the 
publication of case law, implements an open and transparent re-use policy, which has resulted 
in the number of re-users (legal information publishers) substantially increasing to more than 
25 today. The number of Supreme Court case judgments delivered for re-use almost doubled 
from 2002 to 2006, to 1.25 million in 2006. El Derecho Editores, a relatively small publisher 
in 2001, has been particularly innovative since then, producing new highly pioneering legal 
information products appealing to law firms, judges and prosecutors and has become a major 
player in the Spanish legal information market, with sales of €20 million in 2007.

In the area of business information, in which much raw data is gathered from public sources, 
such as company registries, the press and the courts, the number of new products and services 
being  created  and  delivered  on-line  is  substantial  and  increasing.  For  example,  the  business 
information  market  comprises  business  intelligence  services,  business  statistics,  debt 
collection  services,  and  business  and  credit  rating  information,  which  are  so  important  for 
conducting  business.  Febis,  the  European  Federation  of  Business  Information  Services, 
estimated  in  2007  that  the  business  information  market  in  Europe  was  worth  €1.5 
million.10  

Key  players  in  this  market  are  big  companies  such  as  Creditreform  from  Germany  and 
Bisnode AB from Sweden, but small firms are also emerging. 

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The European Online Information Market 2006, Report. IRN Research. May 2006. 
GFII. L’information électronique professionnelle en France: Le marché en 2007 et les tendances. 
Wolters Kluwer Ltd estimate. The Future of the Information Industry Conference. August 2006. 
http://www.febis.org/cadre.asp. 

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Bisnode AB 

Bisnode  AB  is  one  of  Europe’s  leading  providers  of  digital  business  information,  including 
credit  reports,  company  and  consumer  information,  direct  marketing  tools  and  market 
information  for  the  general  business-to-business  market.  Bisnode  has  companies  in  19 
countries  and  3 200  employees  (2007).  Turnover  last  year  was  4.055  million  SKR  (580 
million  SKR  in  profit).  A  large  part  of  the  information  that  Bisnode  uses  to  produce 
information services originates from the public sector.  

Access  to  and  re-use  of  meteorological  information  has  a  direct  impact  on  the  economic 
activity  of  private  firms,  as  many  industries,  particularly  agriculture,  transport,  tourism  and 
energy, are affected by weather-related events.11 Variations in temperature – even small ones 
– can have long-lasting effects on the operational results of certain industries. The overall size 
of  the  market  in  Europe  for  weather  and  climatological  services  (including  aviation)  in 
2006 was estimated to be around €530m. 12 

Businesses and individuals greatly value accurate weather forecasts as a means of mitigating 
the effects of bad weather. This requires ad hoc services beyond those provided by National 
Met Offices. Many big companies and projects, such as the media, airlines, large construction 
companies, energy supply programmes, large transport networks and so forth, require timely, 
immediate and very detailed meteorological information, which is crucial for their businesses. 
This is provided through the combination of synoptic observations, satellite images or radar 
data  gathered  from  different  sources  applying  embedded  information  technology  and 
forecasting analysis provided by private weather firms to produce tailor specific added value 
solutions. 

Foreca 

Foreca is a privately-owned, full-scale weather service company based in Finland, which was 
established  in  1996.  It  is  seen  as  something  of  a  pioneer  in  weather  services  for  the  digital 
media. It is at the forefront in providing wireless weather services. It recently launched a new 
free  mobile  internet  weather  service,  providing  weather  information  for  more  than  80 000 
locations  around  the  world.  The  service  includes  current  conditions  as  well  as  weather 
forecasts  up  to  seven  days.  It  also  contains  animated  maps,  e.g.  satellite  data  covering  the 
whole world and rain radar images for selected territories  

In  addition,  access  to  and  re-use  of  reliable  meteorological  information  is  of  paramount 
importance  to  the  weather  risk/insurance  management  industry,  where  users  such  as 
energy  companies  or  retailers  can  limit  any  potential  losses  due  to  unforeseen  temperature 
fluctuations. The notional value of contracts in this market is put at around $32 billion in the 
US,13 whereas the market in Europe is only in its infancy.14 

In the US, NBC Universal unit, part of General Electric, agreed to buy The Weather Channel 
in a deal believed to be worth around $3.5 billion. This type of deal highlights the extent to 

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According to the U.S. Department of Energy, an estimated 25% of a country’s GNP. 
Towards a stronger European market in applied meteorology. Dr R. E. W. Pettifer. Meteorological 
Applications. Volume 15, Issue 2, pp. 305-312. 
The Economist. “Something for a rainy day”, 12 July 12 2008. 
“Avec la creation de Metnext la meteo s’invite dans l’economie”. Le Monde, 12 May 2007. 

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which citizens and businesses appreciate a high quality forecast, amid the plethora of internet 
websites giving current and future weather conditions. 

The above figures illustrate that the impact and value of PSI is real and substantial, and 
confirm the growth potential of these markets. These growth trends were confirmed in the 
Assessment of the re-use of PSI undertaken on behalf of the Commission, which focused on 
three  main  PSI  sectors:  geographical  and  meteorological  information,  which  will  be  further 
developed in Section 4. 

2.2. 

PSI and Web 2.0  

People  are  making  full  use  of  social  network  tools,  such  as  user-created  content,  wikis, 
mashups  and  blogs,  to  combine  content  from  different  sources  (including  PSI)  to  produce 
Web  2.0  applications.  Netmums.com  has  350 00015  users  and  provides  information  on 
parenting;  other 
and 
Planningalerts.com. These applications have proven social benefits and public value. Another 
example  is  the  farm  subsidy  site16  which  tracks  how  the  EU  Common  Agricultural  Policy 
(CAP) is spent. 

include  Theyworkforyou.com,  Chicagocrime.org 

examples 

The  rapid  growth  of  these  emerging  types  of  activities  are  beginning  to  represent 
opportunities for economic growth, whereby “the wide availability of public data for re-use 
seems to be an important enabling factor for web 2.0 application to flourish17”.  

Upmystreet.com 

UpMyStreet  has  become  one  of  most  popular  home  and  local  information  internet  service 
providers in the UK. It provides users with a large range of searchable local information based 
on  postcodes,  including  property  prices,  school  information,  local  directory  services, 
demographic profiles, council information, crime reports and transport links in a given area. 
Much  of  this  information  is  PSI  from  many  different  sources.  It  derives  revenue  from 
advertising,  partnerships  and  from  providing  business-to-business  information  services.  1.3 
million people visit the site every month. 

The  importance  and  potential  of  PSI  and  Web  2.0  was  highlighted  in  “The  Power  of 
Information  Review”18,  which  took  a  practical  look  at  the  use  and  development  of  citizen 
and  government-generated  information  in  the  UK,  and  concluded  that  this  growing  area 
represents a  story  of opportunities for the development of new products  and services. In a 
recent  follow-up  to  this  review,  the  UK  cabinet  Office  launched  a  “showusabetterway” 
competition19 in June 2008,, calling for entries on news ways and ideas as how to re-use PSI 
in  the  UK,  and  providing  the  winner  with  prize  money  (£20 000)  to  develop  and  launch 
his/her project to maximum effect. More than 450 participants  took  part  in  the  competition, 
with very fascinating and  imaginative projects being suggested. One of the winners  aims to 
develop a website application that would allow users to introduce their postcode and find out 
what  they  can  recycle  and  where.  Another  interesting  idea  submitted  was  to  develop  a  UK 
Wreck  Map,  showing  the  location  of  undersea  wrecks  around  Britain’s  coast,  which  is  of 

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http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/doc/1061606.doc. 
http://farmsubsidy.org/. 
http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=1565. 
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/power_information.pdf. 
http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/. 

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great  interest  to  divers.  The  District  of  Columbia  in  the  US20  recently  held  a  similar 
competition. These competitions have enabled governments to gain a better understanding of 
the  potential  of  PSI,  to  identify  which  information  assets  held  by  them  are  valuable  to  re-
users,  and  how  they  can  be  mashed  up  and  re-used  for  the  development  of  newly  created 
services and products for new applications. 

2.3. 

PSI as a driver of innovation and sustainable growth 

Many examples exist of flourishing new small innovative firms, products and services, in new 
emerging sectors, which have significant PSI content. 

In the area of utilities, for example, uSwitch21 is a UK internet company which was founded 
in  2000,  and  provides  a  free,  impartial  online  and  phone-based  comparison  and  switching 
service  that  helps  customers  compare  prices  and  services  offered  by  the  different  utilities 
providers.  It  combines  private  information  with  PSI  to  provide  its  services.  It  developed  a 
series of calculators that evaluate a number of key factors, including price, location, service 
and  method  of  payment,  and  advises  customers  on  the  best  deal  to  suit  their  needs.  It  was 
bought in March 2006 by EW Scripps for £210 million.  

Similarly,  in  the  area  of  meteorological  information,  Meteosim,22  which  started  as  a 
university  spin-off  company  in  Barcelona,  has  specialised  in  offering  products  and 
consultancy  services  to  the  wind  energy  industry,  such  as  wind  power  forecasting,  and  has 
substantially grown in parallel with the development of the wind energy industry. 

In  the  area  of  geographical  information,  users  can  now  consult  and  use  cartographic  maps 
from their computers. Services such as Viamichelin and Mappy have become popular sites 
for anybody planning a trip or holiday. Another good example of new services provided with 
a significant PSI geographical content is Google Maps/Google Earth or Geoportail in France, 
a service of the IGN (Institut Geographique National). 

Google Maps 

Google  is  a  free  web  mapping  service  application  and  technology  provided  by  Google.  It 
offers street maps, route planning services and high-resolution satellite images of urban areas 
in  numerous  countries  around  the  world.  Some  of  its  imagery  comes  from  governmental 
sources.  Google’s  programming  model  has  led  to  the  creation  of  numerous  value-added 
services  in  the  form  of  mashups  that  link  Google  Maps  with  other  internet-accessible  data 
sources. WikiCrimes is a wiki-style website where internet users can report crimes by placing 
pins on GoogleMaps.  

The examples highlighted above have grown considerably and become established players in 
their respective markets. PSI in these examples is a valuable raw material that has been re-
used  by  parties  in  added-value  information  products  and  services.  PSI  has  widely  shown 
itself,  in  this  digital  age,  to  be  a  driver  of  innovation  and  growth,  and  could  greatly 

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22 

http://www.appsfordemocracy.org/. 
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/power_information.pdf. 
http://www.meteosimtruewind.com/. 

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contribute to achieving the “Growth and Jobs Strategy”23, a revised version of the Lisbon 
Agenda.  

The above MEPSIR and OFT CUPI report24
 claims there is still widely unmet potential of 
PSI markets. These and other reports conclude that, with further availability of information 
and  competition  in  the  re-use  market,  PSI’s  contribution  to  the  economy  could  be  much 
greater.  The  CUPI  report  concluded,  for  example,  that,  if  there  were  more  competition  in 
public sector information re-use, PSI’s contribution to the UK economy could easily double 
in terms of value to €1.5 billion per year.

3. 

THE PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION (PSI) DIRECTIVE  

The  PSI  Directive25  provides  for  minimum  rules  applicable  in  all  the  Member  States  on 
the  re-use  of  the  information  of  public  sector  bodies  and  on  their  behaviour  in  the 
information  market.  However,  Member  States  are  encouraged  to  go  beyond  this  minimum 
level, and adopt measures which are more favourable for re-use. 

The Directive was adopted in order to address the many problems faced by private companies 
when  dealing  with  public  sector  information  holders:  high  charges,  long  response  times, 
unfair competition, exclusive arrangements and the general non-availability of information for 
re-use. These barriers and the different ways of handling the issue in the Member States made 
it difficult for companies to develop added-value services and products based on public sector 
information, in particular cross-border products. 

By  enhancing  the  right  to  re-use,  laying  down  transparency  requirements,  setting  an  upper 
limit  on  charges  and  establishing  fair  competition  rules,  the  Directive  aims  to  foster  the 
creation  of  EU-wide  information  products  and  services  based  on  public  sector  information. 
The Directive encourages Member States to make as much information available for re-use as 
possible.  Ultimately,  it  targets  a  change  of  culture  in  the  public  sector,  creating  a  favourable 
environment for the re-use of its information assets. 

3.1. 

Key provisions 

The Directive covers all type of documents. It addresses material held by public sector bodies in 
the Member States, at national, regional and local level, as well as organisations for the most part 
financed  by  or  under  the  control  of  the  public  authorities,  such  as  national  meteorological 
institutes  and  mapping  agencies.  A  broad  definition  of  document  ensures  that  the  most 
economically valuable data assets are covered by the Directive. However, the Directive does not 
apply to educational, scientific, broadcasting and cultural institutions.  

The Directive is built around two key pillars of the internal market: transparency and fair 
competition. It contains rules on the following aspects: 

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25 

http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/pdf/COM2005_024_en.pdf. 
http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/publications/reports/consumer-protection/oft861. 
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/directive/psi_directive_en.pdf. 

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3.1.1.  Clear procedures to deal with requests for re-use 

The  lack  of  standardised  conditions  for  re-use  is  a  major  barrier  to  opening  up  the  full 
potential of the European market of PSI-based products and services. The Directive deals with 
this  problem  by  providing  for  a  minimum  set  of  procedural  rules  on  requests  for  re-use. 
Article  4  of  the  PSI  Directive  lays  down  an  obligation  on  public  sector  bodies  to  process 
requests for re-use within a reasonable time that is consistent with the timeframes laid down 
for  the  processing  of  requests  for  access  to  documents  or,  in  the  absence  of  time  limits  or 
other rules regarding the timely provision of documents, not exceeding 20 working days. The 
same article also provides for specific procedural requirements in the event of a refusal to re-
use (such as an obligation to communicate the grounds for refusal or reference to the means of 
redress). Documents should be made available for re-use in all formats and languages in which 
the information exists. Where possible, the material must be made available by electronic means. 

3.1.2.  Upper limit for charging 

The upper limit is based on costs incurred to produce the information, together with a reasonable 
return  on  investment.  Lower  charges  (or  no  charges  at  all)  can  certainly  be  applied,  and 
public sector bodies are encouraged to do so. On request, public sector bodies have to say how 
the charges are calculated. Article 6 of the Directive provides that, where charges for re-use of 
public sector information are applicable, the total income from supplying and allowing re-use of 
documents shall not exceed the costs of collection, production, reproduction and dissemination, 
together with a reasonable return on investment.  

3.1.3.  Transparency of conditions applicable to re-use and means of redress 

Article 7 of the Directive requires any applicable conditions and standard charges for the re-
use  of  documents  held  by  public  sector  bodies to  be  pre-established  and  published, through 
electronic means where possible and appropriate. It also has to be clear where applicants can 
seek redress against decisions that affect them. 

3.1.4.  Obligation to avoid discrimination between market players in the conditions for re-

use 

The PSI Directive tackles the problem of unfair terms of competition in an area where private 
companies  compete  between  themselves,  but  very  often  also  with  public  sector  bodies 
providing  the  information.  The  Directive  prohibits  discriminatory  treatment  between 
comparable  categories  of  re-use  (Article  10(1))  and  also  cross-subsidies  within  public  sector 
bodies  where  public  sector  documents  are  re-used  for  commercial  activities  which  fall  outside 
the scope of their public tasks (Article 10(2)).  

3.1.5.  Prohibition  of  exclusive  arrangements,  with  the  exception  of  the  exclusive  rights 

necessary for the provision of a service in the public interest 

The  Directive  also  seeks  to  make  PSI  available  to  all  potential  re-users.  Article  11  of  the 
Directive  provides  for  a prohibition  on  exclusive  arrangements.  Such  arrangements  have  to  be 
terminated at the latest by the end of 2008. However, when an exclusive right is necessary for the 
provision  of  a  service  in  the  public  interest,  an  exception  from  the  above  rule is  allowed. The 
validity  of  the  reason  granting  an  exclusive  arrangement  must  be  regularly  reviewed.  Such 
exceptional exclusive arrangements must be also transparent and made public.  

EN 

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4. 

TRANSPOSITION OF THE DIRECTIVE 

This  was  the  first  ever  Community  legal  instrument  aimed  at  harmonising  the  framework 
conditions for the re-use of public sector information at EU level. This and the fact that it is a 
‘horizontal’  instrument,  which  cuts  across  the  whole  public  sector  administrations,  and  is 
shaped  differently  from  country 
the 
implementation of the Directive and somewhat disparate transposition. 

triggered  different  approaches 

to  country, 

to 

4.1. 

Different approaches to implementation 

Member States have taken basically three different approaches to implementing the Directive. 
Several Member States (11) have adopted specific implementing legislation regarding the re-
use  of  PSI  (for  example  Germany,  Spain  or  Italy).  4  MS  have  used  a  combination  of  new 
measures specifically addressing re-use and legislation predating the Directive (e.g Denmark) 
and 8 MS have adapted their legislative framework for access to documents to include re-use 
of PSI (e.g. France). The remaining Member States (4) have notified the Commission only of 
measures  predating  the  Directive,  with  no  specific  re-use  provisions  (e.g.  Poland  and 
Hungary).  

The Directive makes commercial re-use possible in Belgium 

In  Belgium  the  PSI  Directive  sparked  a  radical  change  from  a  complete  ban  on  the 
dissemination or reuse of public sector information (so-called ‘documents administratifs’) for 
commercial  purposes  to  a  system  based  on  the  freedom  to  reuse  such  information  for  both 
commercial and non-commercial purposes.  

A table setting out the different implementing measures in the Member States can be found in 
the Annex. 

4.2. 

Delays in implementation, revised laws 

While only four countries managed to notify their transposition measures before the deadline 
of 1 July 2005, the majority did so at a later stage and, in five cases, only after infringement 
proceedings were launched (the Commission initially launched infringement proceedings by 
sending  letters  of  formal  notice  to  15  Member  States  in  October  2005,  it  pursued  the 
proceedings  in  March  2006  with  reasoned  opinions  to  8  Member  States,  and  the  Court  of 
Justice  delivered  four  judgements  in  2007  for  non-transposition  The  last  notification  of 
national transposition (by Belgium) took place only in May 2008, more than two and a half 
years after the deadline. 

4.3. 

Complaints, infringement procedures 

Following  conformity  checks  of  national  transposition  measures  and/or  complaints,  the 
Commission  approached  the  national  authorities  of  a  number  of  Member  States  on  non-
conformity  issues  in  line  with  the  “A  Europe  of  results  –  Applying  Community  Law”26 
approach. Several Member States then changed their transposition laws to accommodate the 
concerns raised (e.g. Ireland and Greece). In three cases the Commission decided to initiate 
infringement  proceedings  for  incorrect  and  incomplete  transposition,  the  first,  in  2006, 
triggered  by  a  complaint  (Sweden)  and  the  second  and  third,  in  2008  and  2009,  on  its  own 

26 

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0502:FIN:EN:HTML. 

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13 

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initiative against Poland27 and Italy28. The Commission considers that several key provisions 
of  the  Directive  have  not  been  properly  transposed,  in  particular  concerning  charging,  non-
discrimination,  prohibition  of  exclusive  agreements  and  procedural  requirements.  Very 
recently,  several  additional  complaints  have  been  lodged  to  the  Commission  for  incorrect 
application of the Directive; these are still due to be looked into by the Commission. So far 
very few non-conformity issues have been brought before the national courts. 

5. 

RESULTS  OF  MEMBER  STATE  AND  STAKEHOLDER  PUBLIC  CONSULTATION  ON  THE 
REVIEW OF THE DIRECTIVE 

5.1. 

Results of the Member State consultation on the review of the Directive 

The  Directive  itself  establishes  that  the  Commission  will  submit  a  report  to  the  European 
Parliament  and  the  Council  in  2008  on  the  results  of  the  review  of  the  application  of  the 
Directive.  

In this context, a questionnaire was submitted to the Member States via their representatives 
in  the  PSI  Group,29  to  provide  the  Commission  with  their  views  on  the  review.  The 
consultation  was  divided  into  3  specific  sections:  i)  implementation  and  impact  of  the 
Directive,  ii)  scope  of  the  Directive,  and  iii)  looking  ahead.  14  Member  States  have 
responded to the questionnaire. A summary report and the specific Member State responses 
are publicly available at http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm 

By  and  large,  the  consultation  yielded  substantial  positive  feedback  on  the  impact  of  the 
PSI Directive among Member States, which, from a qualitative point of view, regard the PSI 
Directive as positive as it provides a legal framework for the re-use of PSI in their respective 
countries – an area that was largely unregulated before. The Directive has set a new policy in 
the Member States and in the EU, provided a set of principles with which public bodies now 
have to comply as regards the re-use of PSI, and triggered much positive reaction. 

From a quantitative point of view, some Member States take the view that it is too early to 
tell  what  the  impact  of  the  Directive  has  been,  due  to  the  late  transposition  into  national 
legislation  in  certain  cases.  Others  consider  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  provide  factual 
economic  figures  to  measure  the  impact  of  re-use  policies  in  their  respective  countries. 
Member  States  (e.g.  UK,  Slovenia  and  France)  that  have  implemented  a  considerable 
number  of  practical  measures  to  support  the  implementing  legislation  of  the  Directive  have 
signalled that the Directive has had a positive impact on their information market. 

However, Member States have also stated that the full  potential  of PSI re-use is far from 
being  attained  due  to  the  lack  of  awareness  by  public  sector  bodies  of  the  opportunities 
offered and of their responsibilities as regard PSI re-use, and due to the limited knowledge 
by  the  private  sector  of  the  availability  and  potential  of  PSI  re-use.  In  addition,  some 
Member States have indicated that the private sector finds it very difficult to establish what 

27 

28 

29 

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1524&format=HTML&aged=0&langua 
ge=EN&guiLanguage=en. 
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/425&format=HTML&aged=0&langua 
ge=EN&guiLanguage=en. 
It  consists  of  Member  State  officials,  local  or  regional  authorities,  and  representatives  from  private 
sector  organisations  who  meet  regularly  to  exchange  good  practises  of  PSI  re-use  and  initiatives 
supporting PSI re-use and discuss practical issues regarding transposition of the PSI Directive. 

EN 

14 

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type  of  PSI  is  available  for  re-use  and  to  discuss  PSI  re-use  with  different  levels  of 
government. 

Member  States  have  also  flagged  the  problems  private  companies  face  when  public  bodies 
compete  commercially  with  them  in  the  market,  notably  when  the  latter  is  undertaking  its 
public task. 

As  regards  the  impact  on  pricing,  most  Members  States  believe  that  the  Directive  has 
facilitated  and  consolidated  a  general  trend  towards  applying  low  and  even  marginal  cost 
pricing regimes in their respective countries and greater transparency has been introduced 
within all levels of government when establishing prices. A few responses said that, while the 
Directive  establishes  minimum  standards  to  harmonise  the  re-use  of  PSI  in  the  EU,  at  the 
same time it encourages Member States to go beyond this minimum level of harmonisation. 
Some of them have thus decided to go further than the provisions of the Directive and have 
declared plans, for example, to apply marginal cost pricing to all central government PSI in 
future  (e.g.  the  Netherlands),  or  have  decided  that  all  public  sector  information  must  be 
available for re-use (e.g. Slovenia). 

As regards the scope of the Directive, the vast majority of respondents much appreciate the 
potential for re-use of the information held by cultural, research and public broadcasting 
institutions,  although  most  of  them  are  of  the  opinion  that  there  are  no  grounds  to  bring 
these  sectors  within  the  scope  of  the  Directive.  Member  States  consider  that  the  material 
these  institutions  hold  includes  substantial  third  party  IPRs  and  copyright  works,  which 
would not be allowed for re-use in any case, and the administrative burden and associated 
costs  these  institutions  would  incur  in  order  to  comply  with  the  Directive  would  not  be 
outweighed  by  the  potential  benefits.  There  seems  to  be  a  common  view  that  a  substantial 
cost/benefit study on this topic should be undertaken before considering extending the scope 
of the Directive. It should also be noted that two Member States (Latvia and Lithuania) would 
like the scope to be extended to sectors currently excluded. 

The overwhelming majority of the Member States that responded to the questionnaire 
believe that, at present, it is too premature to review the Directive, preferring to allow 
further time for full implementation and to reconsider a possible review at a later stage. 

5.2. 

Results of stakeholder consultation on the review of the Directive 

In  addition  to  the  Member  States  questionnaire,  an  online  stakeholder  consultation  on  the 
review  of  the  PSI  Directive  was  undertaken  to  gather  information  from  as  many  sources  as 
possible,  including  public  sector  content  holders  and  commercial  and  non-commercial  re-
users (universities, NGOs) on their views of different aspects of the implementation, impact 
and scope of the PSI Directive. The  online  consultation  was  launched  on 16 May 2008  and 
closed on 15 September 2008. The consultation was published on the Information Society PSI 
Thematic Portal30 and on the Commission’s ‘Your Voice in Europe’ webpage.31 A summary 
report  and 
responses  are  publicly  available  at 
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm 

specific  Member  States’ 

the 

The  Commission  received  38  responses  to  the  stakeholder  consultation.  These  embrace  the 
different  parties  involved  in  the  PSI  value  chain:  content  holders  (government  agencies), 

30 
31 

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm. 
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/tl/activities/consultations/index_en.htm#open_consultations. 

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commercial  associations,  private  firms,  public–private  and  non-profit  associations,  private 
individuals, and two others that do not fall into any particular category (a political party and a 
PSI thematic network).  

Overall, respondents reported that the Directive has had a positive effect on promoting PSI 
reuse in their respective countries by providing and establishing a legislative framework in 
a previously unregulated market.  

However,  diverging  views  exist  between  public  sector  bodies  (the  supply  side)  and  re-
users  (the  demand  side)  on  the  current  PSI  reuse  environment.  While  the  former  group 
considers  it  to  be  satisfactory  and  working  well,  re-users  are  more  critical  and  feel  that 
implementation of the Directive has been much too slow. Some respondents go further and 
state  that  it  has  been  neither  properly  implemented  nor  applied  in  the  Member  States.  A 
majority of respondents consider that significant barriers remain that need to be addressed 
in order to tap the full PSI re-use potential in the EU. Problems frequently cited are the lack 
of awareness of the potential of PSI re-use and of the Directive among public sector bodies, 
especially  at  regional  and  local  level,  little  effort  from  public  bodies  to  facilitate  and 
promote re-use, lack of knowledge or mechanisms to identify what information is available 
for  re-use,  the  non-mandatory  requirement  for  PSI  re-use,  strict  licensing  conditions 
imposed by public sector content holders, the limits of the public task when public bodies 
commercially compete with private firms, high prices for PSI, unfair competition practices 
by  public  sector  bodies,  very  limited  transparency  in  public  bodies’  re-use  policies  and 
particularly the way charges are calculated, and the absence of efficient means of redress in 
most countries.  

As regards the impact of the Directive on charging policies practised by the public sector, the 
overwhelming majority of private re-users believe that implementation has hardly had any 
impact on the pricing of PSI, although some laudable exceptions have been signalled.  

A significant group of stakeholders expressed their support for extending the scope of the 
Directive to cultural, research and broadcasting institutions, as it was felt that this would 
have an impact on developing the content market in Europe. However, specific stakeholders 
(basically associations) representing the views of the so-called “excluded sectors” came out 
against  any  extension  of  the  scope,  underlining  the  high  administrative  burden  they  would 
have  to  incur  to  comply  with  the  Directive,  and  pointing  out  that,  in  addition,  most  of  the 
content  they  hold  would  not  in  any  case  fall  within  the  scope  of  the  Directive,  since  it  has 
third  party  copyrights.  The  mechanism  proposed  by  the  High  Level  Group  on  Digital 
Libraries in its Public Private Partnership Report32 was mentioned as a way forward by 
some  respondents;  these  institutions  would  be  kept  out  of  the  scope  of  the  Directive,  but 
would aim to abide by the principles and spirit of the PSI Directive.  

The bulk of the responses from re-users suggest legislative amendments to the Directive to 
make  it  “sharper”  and  “tighter”  in  its  obligations  for  public  sector  bodies,  which  enjoy 
great flexibility in the current legislative framework. The suggestions range from making 
the  obligation  for  allowing  PSI  re-use  the  norm,  imposing  marginal  cost  pricing, 
requiring the establishment of independent regulators in the Member States and/or dispute 
resolution  mechanisms,  and  introducing  greater  clarity  regarding  the  public  tasks  of  public 
sector  content  holders.  In  addition,  respondents  suggested  drawing  up  national  asset 

32 

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/hleg/reports/ppp/ppp_final.pdf. 

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lists/repositories and obliging Member States to report annually to  the Commission on their 
measures to promote PSI. 

Finally,  it  was  strongly  recommended  that  guidance  be  issued  on  specific  terms  of  the 
Directive,  which  are,  in  their  opinion,  very  ambiguous,  such  as  the  definitions  of  “public 
tasks” and “document” and the concepts of “marginal cost pricing” and “reasonable return on 
investment”. 

6. 

EVALUATION OF THE SCOPE AND IMPACT OF THE DIRECTIVE 

6.1. 

Impact of the Directive 

6.1.1. 

Increase in re-use of PSI 

Whilst  the  Directive  came  into  effect  in  2003,  but  was  not  fully  transposed  in  all  Member 
States until early 2008, positive effects have been reported.  

To measure the impact of the re-use of PSI, an assessment33 was carried out on behalf of the 
Commission.  This  focused  on  three  main  PSI  sectors:  geographical  and  meteorological 
information, which has the highest economic value, and legal and administrative information, 
an area which is singled out in the review clause.  

The  conclusion  of  the  assessment  is  undoubtedly  positive,  as  the  re-use  of  PSI  is 
increasing in all three sectors although the impact across these sectors has been uneven.  

The  assessment  indicates  that  the  Directive  has  had  its  strongest  impact  in  the  sector  of 
geographical  information  (GI).  The  GI  market  is  growing  steadily  across  European 
markets. The assessment reports that since 2002 re-use requests have increased by 250% 
on average and the download volume has grown simultaneously by approximately 350%. 
Two thirds (66%) of respondents of GI re-users (private firms) reported that their income has 
increased  in  recent  years  and  new  emerging  players  are  entering  the  market  offering 
pioneering applications for geographical information. The National Mapping and Cadastral 
Agencies (NMCA) of Spain and Austria have made significant changes to their charging 
policies,  and  provide  very  good  examples  of  pricing  and  licensing  models  geared  to 
facilitating re-use.  

A substantial number of public holders of GI have introduced significant changes to their data 
policies  as  a  result  of  the  Directive,  many  of  which  refer  to  technical  issues  such  as  data 
formats and modes of delivery. As a consequence, GI is increasingly being offered on internet 
portals  or  via  web  services.  While  recognising  and  welcoming  these  improvements,  GI  re-
users  still  complain  about  restrictive  licensing  and  high  prices,  although  a  few  also 
highlighted  positive  changes  in  terms  of  pricing  and  licensing  (34%  and  28%  of  positive 
replies respectively).  

The  report  states  that  a  large  majority  (79%)  of  private  re-users  of  GI  would  like  to 
have access to more public GI but high pricing and restrictive licensing are preventing 
them from doing so. In order to meet this demand, the assessment suggests that public sector 
holders  should  improve  their  delivery  conditions  rapidly.  It  should  be  noted  that  in  recent 

33 

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/micus_report_december2008.pdf. 

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years  GI  has  been  made  increasingly  available  by  alternative  private  sources, 
consequently leading to a substitution of public sector information.  

The assessment also reveals that the Directive has had a considerable impact in the sector of 
legal  and  administrative  information.  The  majority  of  public  sector  holders  say  that  they 
have made noticeable changes to their data policy since 2002, nearly half of them confirming 
that  the  changes  have  been  brought  about  by  legislation.  The  majority  of  public  sector 
holders (79%) also report that they provide legislative and administrative information free of 
charge on their websites. 

The  market  for  legal  and  administrative  information  is  growing:  on  average  by  40% 
since  2002.  Most  of  the  private  firms  (legal  publishers)  surveyed  reported  ever-increasing 
rates of income. According to the assessment, it is in particular those who add value to PSI 
who  have  reported  exceptional  growth  rates.  In  addition,  several  new  online  information 
portals have been set up which offer convenient search tools (e.g. thesaurus) to access and re-
use legal information. 

However, the survey also highlights the continuing dissatisfaction expressed by re-users about 
public authorities. In this sector the lack of information on what legal and administrative 
information is accessible and available for re-use was flagged as a major area of concern. 
Although this can be explained by the decentralised organisation of jurisdiction, it could also 
indicate that re-users do not have a successful business relationship with the respective public 
sector holder.  

In the sector of meteorological information, the assessment suggests that the Directive has 
had limited impact so far. Although the National Meteorological Services (NMSs) have also 
introduced  many  changes  to  their  data  policy,  only  5  out  of  25  NMSs  reported  that  these 
policy changes were  due  to  changes in national  legislation.  The  market  for  private weather 
services is also growing. Most of the respondents (74%) reported an increase in data volume 
download of 70% and, of those that reported figures for turnover, all confirmed significant 
increases in recent years. However, it can be assumed that the number of companies active in 
the meteorological sector in Europe is not more than 70, which is still a very small number for 
a market with such massive re-use potential. 

Meteorological  re-users  complain  basically  about  pricing,  transparency  and  licensing 
conditions,  and  report  that  discriminatory  practices  are  particularly  prevalent  in  this  sector. 
Many re-users expressed their wish for an efficient system providing free meteorological data 
and unrestrictive licences, as provided in the United States by NOOA,34 from which they are 
increasingly  gathering  much  of  their  data.  The  majority  of  re-users  of  meteorological 
information (88%) would like to obtain more PSI from holders. However, due to high pricing 
and  licensing  they  currently  refuse  to  purchase  additional  data  and  aim  to  either  gather  it 
elsewhere  (US)  or  set  up  complementary  (private)  networks  to  gather  the  information  they 
may require.  

Meteomedia 

Meteomedia  is  now  one  of  the  leading  weather  service  providers  in  Europe,  with 
approximately 120 employees. It operates offices in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Canada 
and the United States. The company has developed a complementary private ground weather 
station monitoring network in Germany and Switzerland, with about 600 stations today.  

34 

US National Weather Service. http://www.noaa.gov/. 

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The demand for more PSI in the market is still significant, as re-users of all three sectors 
have reported continued buying interest. In order to meet this demand and thus help to support 
the information economy in Europe, the assessment believes that PSI holders should focus 
on crucial aspects such as licensing and pricing, and provide greater support for the re-
use of PSI. 

6.1.2.  Effects of the principles applied to charging 

Given the importance of the current and potential economic value of the commercial re-use of 
PSI, there is an  ongoing  debate  about what access model and  re-use arrangements would 
facilitate  the  greatest  re-use  of  PSI,  maximising  its  economic  and  social  potential.  This 
topic  raises  many  controversial  issues  regarding  the  manner  in  which  public  sector  bodies 
should  make  their  information  publicly  available,  including  whether  it  is  appropriate  to 
implement cost recovery policies and to use PSI as an income-generating source.  

The literature regarding access to PSI typically makes reference to four broad access models, 
profit  maximising,  cost  recovery,  marginal  cost  and  zero  cost.  The  first  models  target 
profit-maximising strategies where prices are set above the costs of data production at market 
levels. Cost-recovery strategies aim to recoup some or all of the costs of data production. In 
the  latter  models  PSI  is  priced  at  either  no  or  marginal  cost.  In  today’s  digital  world 
information  products  and  data  are  expensive  to  produce,  but,  once  produced,  they  are  very 
cheap to disseminate. 

In 2008,  Cambridge University35 investigated, at  the request of the British Government, the 
impact of adopting different models for the provision of PSI by UK trading funds, which are 
required to be as financially self-sufficient as possible by selling their data and services and 
eventually providing a return to the UK Treasury. The study examined the costs and benefits 
to society, and the effects on government revenue of the different charging policies mentioned 
previously. It concluded in its report that charging no or marginal costs for PSI results in 
social and economic benefits that far outweigh the immediate financial benefits attained 
by  cost-recovery  strategies.  However,  critics  of  this  report  have  questioned  the  permanent 
sustainability  of  a  scheme  providing  PSI  at  no  or  marginal  prices  when  the  cost  of  creating 
and maintaining quality PSI can be substantial. The UK Treasury has commissioned a follow-
up report (“Shareholder Executive Assessment”)36 to analyse the argument as to whether the 
UK economy would benefit from modifying the current trading funds business model. If the 
current business model of the trading funds were to be changed to marginal cost, this would 
require substantial additional investment from public sources. 

Ordnance Survey (UK) 

Ordnance  Survey  maps  every  square  metre  of  Great  Britain.  For  most  of  its  existence,  the 
agency  has  been  a  government  body,  publicly  funded  and  managed.  Since  the  public  sector 
reforms  in  the  1980s  and  1990s,  however,  it  has  become  a  Trading  Fund.  It  is  therefore 
required  to  fund  both  its  public  task  and  commercial  work  from  its  own  revenues  (cost 
recovery basis). The quality of its products is considered remarkable by stakeholders. Further 
to the transposition of the Directive into UK law, a series of complaints have been made by 
some of its customers about its licensing policies, through the appropriate redress mechanism 

35 
36 

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45136.pdf. 
http://www.shareholderexecutive.gov.uk/publications/pdf/tradingfunds250608terms.pdf. 

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in  the  UK.  The  OS  has  recently  modified  its  licensing  regime  and  is  introducing  a  free  of 
charge arrangement for the non-commercial re-use of its information.  

It should be recalled that, as regards the pricing of PSI, Article 6 of the Directive stipulates 
that  “where  charges  are  made,  the  total  income  from  supplying  and  allowing  re-use  of 
documents  shall  not  exceed  the  cost  of  collection,  production,  reproduction  and 
dissemination, together with a reasonable return on investment. Charges should be cost-
oriented  over  the  appropriate  accounting  period  and  calculated  in  line  with  the  accounting 
principles  applicable  to  the  public  sector  bodies  involved”.  The  Directive  also  states  that 
“Member  States  should  encourage  public  sector  bodies  to  make  documents  available  at 
charges  that  do  not  exceed  the  marginal  costs  for  reproducing  and  disseminating  the 
documents”. 

There  are  some  recent  remarkable  examples  of  public  sector  bodies  that  have  adapted 
their  policies  to  a  close  to  marginal  cost  pricing  approach.  The  transposition  of  the  PSI 
Directive  into  Austrian  law  included  amendments  to  the  Austrian  Act  for  Surveying 
concerning  the  delivery  of  data.  In  this  context,  the  Austrian  National  Mapping  and 
Cadastral  Agency  (BEV)  was  already  able  to  change  its  pricing  and  licensing  model  in 
2006 for certain datasets, which  resulted in a significant reduction of fees of up to 97% 
and transparent re-use conditions. As a consequence of this drastic reduction in prices, re-use 
requests  and  orders  have  exploded,  with  increases  of  orders  of  up  to  7 000%  for  digital 
orthophotos.  The  additional  demand  emerged  from  small  and  medium-sized  companies, 
which  can  be  classified  as  “new  user  groups”  in  the  branches  of  geo-marketing,  health 
services and agriculture. The BEV reports that it is maintaining its total turnover. This is a 
win-win  strategy  whereby  PSI  re-use  has  been  largely  increased  with  no  impact  on  the 
finances  of  the  Cadastral  Institution.  A  similar  case  has  occurred  with  the  Spanish 
Cadastre.  

The Directive has made for an explosion in demand  

In the context of implementing the PSI Directive, the Spanish Cadastre modified its access 
and re-use policy, pricing on a marginal cost basis, which has led to an increase in demand for 
its geographical information. For example, more than 17 000 cadastral certificates have been 
issued and 900.000 maps served daily since the adoption of the new policy.  

It should also be noted that the US access model aims to minimise government control and 
maximise  public  access  to  and  re-use  of  PSI.  In  the  US,  federal  information  (‘Circular  A-
130’ – Management of Federal Information Resources) has no copyright and hence falls into 
the public domain. The private sector is encouraged and expected to use raw content to create 
new  information  services  and  buy  public  data  at  no  more  than  the  cost  of  dissemination, 
and without any government re-use restrictions. It is claimed that by disseminating PSI as 
widely as possible, the private sector adopts a greater role in enhancing the value of PSI by 
establishing services from raw public data and then re-selling it. While the actual contribution 
of  PSI  to  the  US  economy  is  difficult  to  measure  and  quantify,  it  is  believed  to  be 
considerable  in  terms  of  the  number  of  new  firms  being  established,  additional  jobs  being 
created and tax revenue generated.37  

37 

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/pira_study/commercial_final_report.pdf. 

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6.2. 

Scope of the Directive  

The review clause enshrined in Article 13 of the Directive requires the Commission to address 
the scope of the Directive in its report to the European Parliament and the Council in 2008 on 
the  application  of  the  Directive.  The  Commission  has  to  analyse  whether  cultural 
establishments,  education  and  research  organisations  and  public  service  broadcasters, 
currently excluded from the scope, ought to be covered by the Directive.  

6.2.1.  Cultural institutions 

(1) 

Scope 

The  question  of  whether  cultural  institutions  should  be  brought  within  the  scope  of  the 
Directive  is  complex.  In  general,  cultural  institutions  represent  a  hybrid  sector,  collecting 
material of which a high proportion involves third-party rights, but also holding amongst their 
collections a considerable amount of public domain material.  

Cultural  institutions  have  embarked  on  major  digitisation  tasks  in  an  effort  to  achieve  their 
mission and make full use of the opportunities the new digital environment offers. Funds for 
online  digitisation  and  availability  of  cultural  content  are  scarce  and  are  being  rationalised, 
and, with increasing public spending restrictions, public-private partnerships (PPP) have come 
into play. Private firms are cooperating with public institutions in their digitisation efforts in 
exchange,  for  example,  for  web  space  for  advertising.  Other  cultural  institutions  have 
outsourced the digitisation and exploitation of their content to commercial image providers.  

A  study38  launched  by  the  Commission  on  whether  or  not  Europe’s  cultural  institutions 
should adopt the principles and provisions of the Directive and be brought within its formal 
scope found that the “benefits of subjecting them to the regime of the Directive appear on 
balance  to  be  modest  at  current  levels  of  activity,  although  it  is  probable  that  the  value  of 
cultural  information  will  rise  in  the  context  of  new  technology-driven  developments  in  and 
around digital libraries”.  

The bulk of the discussion surrounding access to and re-use of this type of content focuses on 
the issue of copyright. The concept of who is the owner of copyright is not a simple one, and 
documents subject to third-party IPR are excluded from the Directive.  

The  report  states  that  the  licensing  of  cultural  content  would  in  any  case  require  major 
administrative  activity  to  clear  third-party  or  unknown  rights.  There  is  also  a  concern 
among cultural institutions that the obligation to respond to re-use requests will lead to heavy 
processing  costs,  including  identifying  and  dealing  with  rights  holders.  It  could  be 
questioned whether undertaking such activities goes beyond the remit of these institutions.  

The  report  highlights  that  the  recent  launch  of  the  Europeana  service  throws  up  enormous 
potential for exposing tens of millions of items of cultural content available for re-use, and 
says that one possible disadvantage of cultural institutions remaining outside the scope of the 
Directive is that valuable PSI held by archives may not become available for re-users on the 
terms that it specifies, and may hamper the potential re-use market. 

38 

Assessment  of  the  Economic  and  Social  Impact  of  the  Public  Domain  in  the  Information  Society, 
Rightscom, 4/2009. 

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Overall, the report concludes that “whilst there is little doubt that PSI held by the cultural 
sector  has  a  significant  potential  value  for  re-users,  the  advantages  of  including  cultural 
heritage  institutions  within  the  scope  of  the  Directive  are  currently  difficult  to  assess  and 
require  further  investigation  over  time.  The  possible  implications  to  this  sector,  as 
previously  described,  should  not  be  allowed  in  the  longer  term  to  outweigh  the  possible 
advantages  to  the  economy,  industry  and  society.  This  situation  will  clearly  need  to  be 
monitored  over  the  next  few  years  in  the  quite  possible  event  that  large-scale  digitisation 
combined  with  enhanced  ICT  for  accessing  content  creates  conditions  where  competition 
factors in relation to re-use of cultural content become more evident”. 

The  recommendation  of  the  High  Level  Group  on  Digital  Libraries  Sub-group  on 
PPP  that  cultural  institutions  should  aim  to  abide  by  the  principles  of  the  Directive 
and  should  seek  to  avoid  exclusive  arrangements  in  establishing  PPPs  has  been 
identified  and  signalled  as  a  way  forward  to  make  cultural  content  more  accessible 
and available for re-use.  

(2) 

Charging at cultural institutions 

to  achieving 

their  various 

institutions  are  widely  committed 

Cultural 
social 
(cultural/educational)  and  economic  goals  through  the  principle  of  providing  free  access  to 
direct  end  users  (general  public,  scholars  and  researchers).  However,  they  are  inclined  to 
regard  commercial  re-use  as  a  separate  matter,  for  which  they  consider  that  they  should  be 
compensated.  In  the  above-mentioned  study,  76%  of  respondents  in  the  report  offer  free 
access to their content for end users, while the remaining 24% make some kind of charge 
for  accessing  at  least  some  of  their  content.  It  should  be  noted  that  32%  of  respondents 
charge  for  licences  to  re-use  content,  showing  a  tendency  among  some  cultural  bodies  to 
distinguish  between  access  and  (commercial)  re-use  in  their  charging  policies.  The  recent 
launch  of  EUROPEANA,  the  European  Digital  Library,  has  made  this  charging  issue  very 
visible for some of the collections it makes available.  

According  to  the  study,  image  libraries  are  probably  the  current  most  widespread  form  of 
commercial activity undertaken by cultural institutions. Although this area of activity is not 
considered  as  being  financially  important,  the  potential  loss  of  these  revenues  and  the 
probable absence of budgetary compensation remains a fear for many cultural institutions. 
Many of the original objects in question are in the public domain and no longer covered by 
copyright,  limiting  third  party  access  and  re-use  to  this  material.  This  presents  the 
potential  risk  of  public  domain  material  becoming  “privatised”  in  the  digital  world 
through restrictive access and re-use conditions. This could be of particular concern when 
cultural institutions hold unique pieces of art. 

A number of cultural institutions implement free access and re-use policies with their public 
domain  collections.  The  French  National  Library  allows  public  domain  books  to  be 
downloaded from its website.  

6.2.2.  Educational institutions 

The  widespread  and  efficient  access  to  and  re-use  of  scientific  information  adds  to  the 
efficiency  of  research  and  leads  to  increased  returns  on  R&D  investment.  Scientific 
information  is  an  important  category  of  PSI  in  that  very  frequently  research  is  publicly 

EN 

22 

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funded  and  is  carried  out  by  universities  or  public  sector  research  centres.  Scientific 
information  is  a  highly  specific  type  of  PSI,  very  different  in  nature  to  statistics  or 
meteorological information.  

The  scientific  world  has  a  well  established  system  for  disseminating  and  exploiting 
research findings and results. For example, the patent system was originally designed and 
established  for  the  wide  dissemination  of  inventions.  The  internet  and  new  information 
society  tools  have  changed  the  way  in  which  researchers  can  access,  share  and  re-use 
scientific information. “Open access” policies pursue the goal of making scientific articles and 
research  data  freely  accessible  to  the  reader  on  the  web.  It  is  widely  felt  by  the  research 
community that publicly funded research should be widely available and useable to all, to 
maximise  its  potential,  a  view  which  is  reflected  in  the  Commission  Communication  on 
“Scientific information in the digital age”39.  

6.2.3.  Public service broadcasting institutions 

Public service broadcasters hold amongst their collections a considerable amount of valuable 
material with significant commercial and non-commercial re-use potential.  

Given that the Directive does not apply to documents if a third party owns the intellectual 
property rights (IPRs), this provision could considerably narrow the number of documents 
that  broadcasters  could  make  available  and  accessible  for  re-use  purposes  under  the 
principles  of  the  Directive.  Allowing  the  commercial  re-use  of  broadcast  material  would 
require  the  transfer  of  rights  from  a  large  number  of  persons  or  entities  who  may  have 
contributed to creating such material for the public sector body in question if such material is 
to be made subject to the provisions of the PSI Directive. This process can become complex 
and cumbersome.  

6.3. 

Re-use of Commission information 

In  April  2006,  the  Commission  adopted  a  Decision40  on  the  re-use  of  Commission 
information, applying internally the principles of the PSI Directive, and going beyond those 
principles in certain provisions, such as marginal cost pricing. The Commission is facilitating 
the  re-use  of  important  information  resources,  such  as  European  legislation  and  case  law 
(“EUR-Lex”41),  public  procurement  information  (“TED”42),  statistics  –  Statistical  Office  of 
the  European  Communities  (“Eurostat”43)  –  and  the  Directorate-General  for  Translation’s 
translation memories for the Acquis Communautaire.44 

6.3.1. 

Identify, publish, promote – strategy 

The Decision on the re-use of Commission information lays down the conditions for the re-
use  of  documents  held  by  the  Commission  or  on  its  behalf  by  the  Office  for  Official 
Publications  of  the  European  Communities  (Publications  Office),  the  aim  being  to  facilitate 
wider  re-use  of  information  and  enhance  the  image  of  openness  of  the  Commission.  The 

39 
40 
41 
42 
43 
44 

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52007DC0056:EN:NOT. 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:107:0038:0041:EN:PDF. 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu. 
http://ted.europa.eu. 
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu. 
http://langtech.jrc.it/DGT-TM.html. 

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Decision  excludes  software  and  documents  covered  by  industrial  property  rights,  research 
results of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and  documents  made  accessible  to  a  party  under 
specific  rules  governing  privileged  access  to  documents.  In  terms  of  charging  policy,  the 
Decision goes beyond the rules set out in the Directive and information is in principle free of 
charge.  In  specific  cases,  marginal  costs  incurred  for  the  reproduction  and  dissemination  of 
documents  may  however  be  recovered.  The  Commission  aims  to  implement  an  “Identify-
Publish-Promote”  strategy,  whereby  all  Commission  departments  producing  or  hosting 
valuable  information  assets  (studies,  reports,  surveys,  statistics,  etc.)  are  recommended  to 
make them visible and easily re-usable.  

6.3.2.  Examples of re-use of Commission information 

6.3.2.1.  Eurostat 

Eurostat  adopted  a  policy  of  free  dissemination  back  in  October  2004.  Re-usable 
documents  and  data  held  by  Eurostat  include  different  types  of  statistical  data,  tables, 
databases, metadata, etc. All re-usable information is published on Eurostat’s website with a 
simple legal notice that re-use is free of restrictions for end users.  

Each  month,  Eurostat’s  website  registers  about  1  million  visitor  sessions,  300 000  PDF 
downloads and about 350 000 data extractions. These figures amount to a 500% increase in 
the  last  5  years.  Commercial  redistribution  is  permitted  and  subject  to  the  respect  of  the 
conditions stated in the copyright notice displayed on the Eurostat website.  

6.3.2.2.  EUR-Lex 

The EUR-Lex web portal provides direct access to European Union law. The system makes 
it possible to consult the Official Journal of the European Union, the EU Treaties, legislation, 
case-law and legislative proposals. It also offers extensive search facilities.  

The portal is managed by the Publications Office. Access to the site is completely free and not 
subject  to  any  conditions.  Reproduction  for  personal  use  or  for  further  non-commercial 
dissemination to end-users is authorised on condition that some form of acknowledgement is 
made. Downloading for commercial re-dissemination purposes is subject to the respect of the 
conditions stated in the copyright notice displayed on the EUR-Lex website. Delivery of files 
(e.g.  in  xml  format),  namely  for  exploitation and  commercial re-dissemination, is subject to 
the conclusion of a priced licence agreement, issued on behalf of the European Communities 
by the Publications Office 

The  number  of  hits  on  the  EUR-Lex  portal  has  steadily  increased  from  about  678 700  in 
2007 to 929 000 daily page views in 2008, a 37% increase.  

The annual volume of data uploaded remains constant, 13265 new documentary units were 
uploaded in 2008 (i.e. in several languages), compared to 14 666 in 2007. The annual volume 
of  data  downloaded  on  the  portal  is  on  the  increase  as  330  million  documents  were 
downloaded in 2008, compared to 310 million in 2007 (7 % increase). The number of paying 
licences is stable (22 in 2008 versus 23 in 2007). 

6.3.2.3.  Translation Memories  

In November 2007, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation (DGT), 
in joint cooperation with the Joint Research Centre (JRC), made its multilingual Translation 

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Memory for the Acquis Communautaire (the body of EU law) publicly accessible. This is a 
collection of parallel texts (texts and their translation, also referred to as bi-texts) in 22 
languages and 432 possible language combinations. A translation memory is a collection of 
small text segments and their translation. Translation memories are used to support translators 
by ensuring that pieces of text that have already been translated do not need to be translated 
again.  Both  translation  memories  and  parallel  texts  are  an  important  linguistic  resource  that 
can be used for a variety of purposes, including, for example, training automatic systems for 
statistical machine translation, or producing monolingual or multilingual lexical and semantic 
resources  such  as  dictionaries  and  ontologies.  The  full  potential  of  these  tools  -  as 
communication enablers for business and citizens alike - has not yet been reached, and its full 
market  potential  remains  unknown.  The  most  outstanding  advantage  of  the  translation 
memories – apart from being freely available – is the number of rare language pairs (e.g. 
Maltese-Estonian,  Slovene-Finnish,  etc.).  In  2008,  almost  24 000  downloads  of  the 
translation memories for the Acquis Communautaire were registered on the JRC server. 

7. 

FOLLOW-UP TO IMPLEMENTATION 

7.1. 

National PSI bodies/dispute settlement bodies 

In some Member States the transposition laws have established clear responsibilities in certain 
government departments as regards the access to and re-use of PSI. This is notably the case of 
the  Office  of  Public  Sector  Information  (OPSI),  which  operates  from  within  the  National 
Archives  in  the  UK.  OPSI  provides  a  wide  range  of  services  to  the  public,  information 
industry,  government  and  the  wider  public  sector  relating  to  finding,  using,  sharing  and 
trading information. 

OPSI 

OPSI  has  UK-wide  policy  responsibility  across  government  for  the  re-use  of  public  sector 
information.  OPSI  is  and  has  been  at  the  heart  of  information  policy,  setting  standards, 
delivering access, becoming a redress mechanism body and encouraging the re-use of public 
sector information.  

In its two years of existence OPSI has: 

published  a  range  of  guidance  material,  which  sets  out  step-by-step  what  public  sector 
organisations need to do to meet their responsibilities; 
contacted over 400 public sector organisations to spread awareness and raise standards; 
introduced  the  Information  Fair  Trader  Scheme  (IFTS),  IFTS  Online,  and  Click-Use 
Licensing, which set standards and make it easier to re-use PSI;  
investigated  a  number  of  complaints  against  public  sector  information  holders,  leading  to 
licensing improvements; 
introduced a PSI mediation scheme, complementary to the redress body they represent; and 
set up a website with PSI information, which has become one of the 10 most visited websites 
in the UK. 

Slovenia and France have also established national bodies responsible for PSI re-use matters, 
including  a  redress  mechanism.  The  establishment  of  these  bodies  has  helped  in  those 
countries to identify which administrative body addresses issues surrounding access to and re-
use  of  PSI.  In  Slovenia,  the  information  Commissioner  has  issued  several  decisions 
regarding  re-use  matters  and  in  France  the  CADA  (Commission  d’accès  aux  documents 

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administratifs) has seen its area of competence expand to include re-use issues, and has taken 
a whole series of decisions (53 in 2007) on the re-use of information, most of them in favour 
of re-users.  

7.2. 

Licensing policy 

The  Directive  requires  public  sector  bodies  to  exercise  their  copyright  in  such  a  way  that  it 
facilitates and encourages  re-use. The advent of the digital age has improved the manner in 
which information is disseminated, and has led to the emergence of new licences, which are 
seen as a viable alternative to traditional online licensing systems.  

For example, Click-Use  is an online licensing system launched by  the UK Office  of  Public 
Sector Information (OPSI) in 2001, which allows potential users to submit online requests for 
the  re-use  of  crown  copyright  material  and  sign  licences  electronically,  normally  free  of 
charge, which has proven to be quick, transparent and secure. Click-Use licences have been 
extremely successful, with over 15 000 licences in operation.  

Another  commonly  recognised  open  licensing  model  is  Creative  Commons  (CC).  This 
comprises a set of licensing terms and conditions that allow copyright owners to grant some 
or all of their rights to the public while retaining some rights through a number of conditions. 
The  ultimate  purpose  is  to  clarify  ownership  of  the  information  and  promote  sharing  of  the 
information  under  licence.  Whilst  the  original  target  user  group  of  Creative  Commons  was 
producers of creative copyright material, there has been growing interest in its application to 
PSI.45  Another  example  is  the  Catalonian  regional  Ministry  of  Justice,46  which  uses  CC 
licenses  in  its  publications.  CC  licences  have  thus  been  of  prime  importance  in  opening  up 
knowledge.  Similarly,  the  Australian  Bureau  of  Statistics  has  decided  that  it  will  also  be 
using a creative commons licence for its statistical47 information. 

7.3. 

Exclusive deals/arrangements 

Public sector bodies often are the only entities that produce a certain type of information and 
therefore have a natural monopoly on this information. This has sometimes led in the past to 
high  charges,  or  to  exclusive  agreements  granted  to  a  single,  or  a  very  limited  number  of 
market  players.  These  exclusive  licences  prevent  other  players  from  obtaining  the 
information  under  similar  conditions  and  producing  added-value  services  based  on  that 
information. The  Directive prescribes that PSI is to be made available to all potential re-
users under similar conditions. The Directive forbids the existence of deals of this kind 
and the transitional period laid down in the Directive for existing exclusive agreements 
ended on 31 December 2008. 

Exclusive agreements between public sector bodies and private players have been phased out 
in  several  Member  States  recently  in  application  of  the  Directive.  Examples  are  exclusive 
agreements  that  existed  include  the  Dutch  car  register,  the  Latvian  state  registers,  and  the 
Swedish  population  register.  In  the  latter  case,  the  change  was  triggered  by  Commission 
action after a complaint.  

45 

46 
47

“Creative  Commons  licensing  for  public  sector  information.  Opportunities  and  pitfalls”  Mireille  van 
Eechoud & Brenda van der Wal”. 
www.gencat.cat. 

http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/4a256353001af3ed4b2562bb00121564/8b2b

dbc1d45a10b1ca25751d000d9b03?opendocument?utm_id=HPI. 

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The Directive leads to the dismantling of an information monopoly based on an 
exclusive agreement in Sweden 

In  Sweden,  the  PSI  Directive  has  led  to  legislative  amendments  and  the  termination  of  an 
exclusive  agreement  regarding  the  State’s  population  register.  A  private  company  managed 
the  registry  and  was  awarded  the  exclusive  right  to  be  the  single  entry  point  for  providing 
information contained in this register – prior to the Directive. The company was able to set its 
own charging conditions for providing the information to third parties.  

Sweden  has  an  open  and  transparent  policy  regarding  the  use  of  public  sector  information, 
both  for  commercial  and  non-commercial  purposes,  together  with  a  long  tradition  of  data 
protection. An important block of the information contained in the register is provided legally 
to numerous public and private users. This information  has  great  economic  value  for  re-use 
since it contains tax declarations data, e.g. for credit rating, marketing, insurance and banking 
purposes.  

The Commission received a complaint regarding the conditions for re-use of this information 
in the register. The change in Sweden was triggered by infringement procedures launched by 
the Commission. 

It  should  also  be  highlighted  that  two  Member  States  –  the  UK48  and  the  Netherlands49  – 
have  taken  early  action  to  identify  possible  exclusive  agreements  within  their  public  sector 
bodies. Both assessments have indeed identified the existence of exclusive agreements and 
their  specific  nature,  and  have  reported  that  currently  remedy  measures  are  being  taken  to 
terminate  these.  Unfortunately,  no  other  Member  States  have  taken  such  a  systematic 
approach to identifying and phasing out these agreements. 

7.4. 

Public task   

Public task is an important concept of the Directive. On the one hand, it defines its scope and, 
on the other, it sets the boundaries of the concept of re-use. The Directive does not contain a 
precise definition of “public tasks” as such. However, the Directive sets out some boundary 
conditions  that  this  concept  has  to  meet:  the  task  has  to  be  vested  in  a  'public  sector  body' 
within the meaning of its Article 2 and it has to be defined by law or other binding rules in the 
Member state concerned or, in the absence of such rules, in line with common administrative 
practice  in  the  Member  state  in  question.  Activities  falling  outside  the  public  task  will 
typically include the supply of documents that are produced and charged for exclusively on a 
commercial basis and in competition with others in the market. The term public task is closely 
related to public service obligations or to services in the general economic interest used in the 
EC  treaty  and  other  Community  rules.  Public  service  obligations  are  normally  defined  as 
obligations  which  an  undertaking  would  not  assume,  or  not  assume  to  the  same  extent  or 
under the same conditions, if it were considering its own commercial interest. The ECJ has 
examined  on  a  case  by  case  basis  whether  certain  activities  can  be  considered  to  be  such 
services  on  the  basis  of  certain  objective  criteria,  such  as  universality  and  continuity  of  the 
service, uniform tariff rates and equal terms. 

48 
49 

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/psi-regulations/exclusive-agreements. 
http://www.epsiplus.net/media/files/onderzoek_exclusieve_contracten_final_2_1. 

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It has been reported that many public sector bodies do not have a clear statement of their own 
public task.  The  CUPI Report states,  for example, that only two out of  the 18 public sector 
bodies  surveyed  had  a  standard  definition  of  their  public  task  in  the  form  of  a  single 
document. If there is no public statement or document that sets out clearly the public task of 
the  public  body  concerned,  it  becomes  more  difficult  to  assess  precisely  the  boundaries 
between such task and other downstream activities that it may carry out in competition with 
other re-users.  

This issue is the cause of much tension between public sector holders and private re-users. As 
far as the latter are concerned, this creates two basics problems:  

1) If a public sector body public goes too far in its mainstream actions, it leaves little room for 
the  private  sector  to  act  in  the  market  and  offer  added  value  products  or  services.  For 
example, the MICUS report highlights that the German State Survey Authorities consider the 
production of maps for leisure activities to be a public task and sell them at very low prices. 
Private German cartographic publishers indeed question whether this should be considered a 
“public task”. 

Certain public sector bodies (such as the Austrian Mapping Agency in the case of maps for 
cyclists)  deliberately  withdraw  from  the  market  once  private  re-users  start  offering  their 
added-value services and products. Another good example is that of the CENDOJ (Council of 
the  Spanish  Judiciary  which  has  the  task  to  care  for  the  publication  of  case  law),  which 
concluded an agreement with legal publishers on the role of each party in the dissemination 
and re-use of this information. (See 7.5) 

2) The second issue refers to cross-subsidies, where a public sector body would use its “raw” 
information  to  develop  further  value-added  services  under  more  favourable  conditions  than 
those offered to competitors.  

In order to ensure fair competition and non-discrimination, as prescribed by Article 10(2) of 
the Directive, if public bodies re-use their own documents to produce added-value services in 
competition  with  other  re-users,  equal  charges  and  other  conditions  should  apply  to  all  of 
them. A clear demarcation of what is the public sector body’s public task, and a separation of 
accounts  for  public  task  and  market  activities  of  public  sector  bodies  helps  to  ensure  this 
objective.  This  approach  has  been  taken,  for  example,  by  the  UK  Met  Office.  Also,  while 
Member  States  can  define  the  public  tasks  of  public  sector  bodies,  they  have  to  take  into 
account certain limits and criteria set by EC law as interpreted by the ECJ. 

7.5. 

Cooperation PSIH – Re-users  

The  responses  to  the  stakeholder  and  Member  State  consultations  and  our  bilateral  contacts 
with stakeholders indicate that there is frequently a mismatch between the information public 
sector bodies make available for re-use and the needs of private re-users. This is an area 
for  further  cooperation  on  maximising  re-use,  as  there  is  a  need  for  public  sector  bodies  to 
meet the real demands of private operators. Public sector bodies are interested in investing in 
IT  system/infrastructure  that  provides  what  re-users  want.  Re-users  underlined  in  the  Micus 
Report  their  willingness  to  buy  more  information  from  public  sources  provided  that  it  is 
delivered under reasonable conditions. In order to meet this demand, PSI holders should focus 
on  crucial  aspects  such  as  licensing,  pricing,  delivery  times  and  provide  greater  support  for 
the re-use of PSI. An interesting example of this is CENDOJ.  

EN 

CENDOJ 

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The Spanish Council of the Judiciary (CENDOJ) recently announced that it had entered into 
an  agreement  with  the  Spanish  Federation  of  Legal  Publishers  on  the  publication  of  its 
jurisprudence,  agreeing  on  the  conditions  of  access  to  and  re-use  by  Spanish  publishers,  in 
accordance with the provisions of the PSI Directive. An important aspect of this agreement is 
the clarification of the role of CENDOJ in the dissemination of case law in terms of fulfilling 
its  public  task  mandate.  This  agreement  is  bound  to  give  a  positive  impulse  to  the  re-use 
business, in particular by defining the scope and boundaries of public and private markets.50 

7.6. 

Technological issues 

PSI re-use can very much be facilitated by appropriate “discovery” tools that make it easy for 
re-users to “find” and “download” the information they require. Information Asset Registers 
(IARs) are particularly relevant, as they list the content and resources held by Public Sector 
Bodies and enable re-users to identify from “one stop shops” what information is held across 
a  given  country.  The  UK  OPSI  website  provides  an  interesting  example  by  unlocking  and 
making  available  the  information  assets  held  across  the  UK  Government.  In  addition,  OPSI 
has  also  developed  a  web  page  where  re-users  can  request  specific  datasets  held  by 
government that they would like released.  

The information assets produced and held by public sector bodies vary considerably from one 
institution  to  another,  and  therefore  the  availability  of  a  structured  metadata  catalogue  of 
their information assets is key to enabling its discovery and making for wider re-use. Whilst 
discussions  are  currently  taking  place  on  the  need  or  otherwise  to  establish  Europe-wide 
metadata  standards,  there  is  an  emerging  consensus  that  IARs  should  be  harmonised  some 
through  some  level  of  standardisation  and  interoperability.  The  call  for  appropriate 
metadata  and  interoperability  standards  is  not  new,  and  this  task  has  been  undertaken  by 
different  specific  communities  to  exchange  and  re-use  data.  For  example,  the  World 
Meteorological  Organisation  (WMO)  standards  are  the  norm  for  exchanging  meteorological 
information.  The  recent  adoption  of  the  INSPIRE  Metadata  Implementing  Rules51  will 
become the agreed standard for exchanging and re-using geographical information in Europe. 

In addition, not only should the information be discovered and available for re-use, it should 
also  be  delivered  in  such  a  way  that  it  can  be  readily  re-used.  For  example,  the  Danish 
Government  Strategy  is  that  government  data  should  be  based  on  open  and  common 
XML  standards  wherever  possible,  thus  enabling  private  re-users  to  plan  for  specific  data 
formats when designing their IT systems and interfaces.  

The  use  of  Semantic  Web  Technologies  has  been  flagged  as  important  in  this  context,  as 
they allow documents to be fully searchable and linkable, not only providing information to 
users but also enabling machine to machine interaction. 

50 
51 

http://www.epsiplus.net/news/psi_directive_quoted. 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:326:0012:0030:EN:PDF. 

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8. 

OVERVIEW  OF  RELEVANT  EUROPEAN  AND 
INITIATIVES  

INTERNATIONAL  PSI-RELATED 

8.1. 

Bilateral contacts, PSI expert group 

A  considerable  number  of  bilateral  contacts  with  publishers,  private  firms,  government 
agencies  and  commercial  associations  have  been  held  to  hear  the  views  of  the  different 
stakeholders, in particular in the private sector.  

PSI Alliance 

The  PSI  Alliance  is  an  association  of  private  Public  Sector  Information  re-users  across  the 
EU.  It  was  established  in  January  2008.  Over  15  organisations  representing  over  200 
companies,  including  Bisnode,  a  Microsoft  subsidiary,  Multimap,  an  EADS  subsidiary, 
Infoterra,  GEOkomm,  PRIMET  and  Lursoft  have  put  their  weight  behind  the  new 
organisation.  The  goal  of  the  PSI  Alliance  is  to  encourage  the  public  and  private  sectors  to 
work together effectively, to ensure that PSI can assume its proper role as a key contributor to 
a  vibrant,  information-driven  European  economy,  offering  benefits  to  the  public  sector, 
private sector and the end consumer alike. 

Similarly formal consultations with Member States have taken place in the context of the PSI 
Group.52  This  group  consists  of  Member  States  officials,  local  or  regional  authorities,  and 
representatives  from  private  sector  organisations  who  meet  regularly  to  exchange  good 
practices  in  PSI  re-use  and  initiatives  supporting  PSI  re-use  and  discuss  practical  issues 
regarding transposition of the PSI Directive. 

8.2. 

Awareness-raising actions and studies under the eContentplus/CIP programmes 

The  Commission  supports  awareness  rising,  exchange  of  good  practices  and  networking 
through the eContentplus programme. The “ePSIplus Thematic Network”53 has developed a 
network  of  correspondents  and  national  experts  and  brought  together  a  large  community  of 
PSI  stakeholders,  raising  awareness  in  the  Member  States  of  PSI  issues  and  facilitating 
implementation  of  the  Directive.  It  has  a  comprehensive  website,  which  monitors  and 
reports  on  PSI-related  issues,  and  has  held  meetings  across  EU  Member  States  to  raise 
awareness of PSI re-use. In addition, 15 specific thematic meetings have taken place, covering 
key  issues  such  as  law  and  regulation,  public  sector  culture,  PSI  re-use  business,  financial 
impact,  information  management,  standards  and  data  quality.  In  June  2008,  it  organised  a 
Conference  entitled  ‘PSI  Re-use  –  Who  Takes  Action  Next?’,  and  subsequently  submitted 
“ePSIplus Recommendations and Supporting Evidence” to the Commission on the review 
of the PSI Directive. The ePSIplus thematic network will be replaced in February 2009 by the 
European  Public  Sector  Information  Platform,  which  will  carry  on  undertaking  PSI 
awareness raising and exchange of good practices. 

Effective deployment of the re-use policy by Member States will have to be accompanied by 
projects  and  support  measures  under  the  Competitiveness  Innovation  Programme  (CIP), 

52 
53 

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/psi_group/index_en.htm. 
http://www.epsiplus.net/. 

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30 

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within  the  part  of  the  CIP  dealing  with  digital  content,  which  will  replace  the  eContentplus 
programme in 2009.54 

In  2009,  an  exercise  is  being  launched  to  assess  the  existence  of  exclusive  agreements 
concluded  by  public  sector  bodies  within  EU  Member  States.  This  will  help  the 
Commission  to  investigate  the  existence  of  such  arrangements  in  the  Member  States, 
particularly in sectors where such practices have been the tradition.  

In addition, a thematic network on the “Legal aspects of Public Sector Information” will 
be set up. The aim is to identify and discuss legal barriers to access to and re-use of PSI in the 
digital environment and to suggest ways of overcoming them.  

8.3. 

Associated Community initiatives  

Various institutions and stakeholders have flagged that greater cooperation between European 
bodies  and  frameworks,  notably  the  INSPIRE  Directive  and  the  Shared  Environmental 
Information  System  (SEIS)  initiative,  should  be  established  by  the  Commission  to  help 
determine what action and initiatives are needed to improve discovery and access to the full 
range of PSI. 

8.3.1. 

SEIS – Shared Environmental Information System 

SEIS55  is  a  collaborative  initiative  of  the  European  Commission  and  the  European 
Environment  Agency  (EEA)  designed  to  establish,  together  with  the  Member  States,  an 
integrated and shared EU-wide environmental information system. This system would tie in 
with all existing data gathering and information flows relating to EU environmental policies 
and legislation. It will be based on technologies such as internet and satellite systems and thus 
make environmental information more readily available and easier to access and re-use.  

The  underlying  aim  of  SEIS  is  also  to  move  away  from  paper-based  reporting  to  a  system 
where information is managed as close as possible to its source and made available to users in 
an open and transparent way.  

SEIS  could  be  a  considerable  PSI  asset:  it  will  facilitate  access  to  and  re-use  of 
environmental information and will boost the development of intelligent e-services by taking 
advantage of data-sharing infrastructures and readily available information.  

8.3.2. 

INSPIRE Directive 

INSPIRE56  is  a  Directive  (2007/2/EC)  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council 
establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community. The 
purpose  of  such  an  infrastructure  is  to  assist  policy-making  in  relation  to  policies  and 
activities that may have a direct or indirect impact on the environment. The Directive entered 
into force on 15 May 2007 and must be transposed in all Member States by 15 May 2009.  

To  ensure  that  the  spatial  data  infrastructures  of  the  Member  States  are  compatible  and 
usable  across  borders  and  in  a  Community  context,  the  Directive  requires  common 
Implementing Rules to be adopted in a number of specific areas. This requirement is one of 

54 
55 
56 

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/index_en.htm. 
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/seis/index.htm. 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:108:SOM:EN:HTML. 

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31 

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the provisions to help raise awareness and increase visibility of all initiatives promoting the 
use and re-use of data. Articles 11(1) and 15 of the INSPIRE Directive require direct access 
to  be  given  to  data  and  services  from  the  Member  State  and  from  the  Communities.  This 
obligation is a big step forward towards improving the efficiency of the use of geospatial data 
for  the  purposes  of  cross-border  business  activity  on  a  pan-European  level,  and  it  is  also 
expected to lead to further developments in the geographical information market. 

8.4. 

International activities (OECD) 

The  OECD  has  been  looking  at  the  opportunities  stemming  from  the  re-use  of  PSI  in  the 
digital  age,  and  at  the  challenges  involved,  since  2006.  The  OECD  Working  Party  on  the 
Information Economy drew up a comprehensive report on PSI in 2006,57 and, more recently, 
the  OECD  Committee  for  Scientific  and  Technological  Policy  (CSTP)  approved  a 
Recommendation of the Council for Enhanced Access and more effective Use of Public 
Sector Information.58 These include a set of principles which in specific cases go beyond the 
requirements of the Directive. For example, it strongly encourages marginal cost pricing for 
PSI. The CSTP will have to monitor implementation of the Recommendation.  

57 
58 

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/10/22/36481524.pdf. 
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/27/40826024.pdf. 

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ANNEX 

Directive 2003/98/EC on the Re-use of Public Sector Information – Means 
of transposition  

I. Specific PSI Legislation 

Member State 

National measures transposing the Directive 

Belgium (BE) 

A series of federal and regional measures transposing the PSI Directive in 
particular regions (2005-2008) 

Cyprus (CY) 

Act establishing rules governing the re-use of existing information held by 
public sector bodies (2006); Decree pursuant to Article 3(2) of the Law on 
PSI (2007) 

Germany (DE) 

Federal  law  transposing  the  PSI  Directive  –  Re-use  of  Information  Act 
(IWG Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz) (2006) 

Spain (ES) 

Law No 37/2007 on the re-use of public sector information (2007) 

Greece (GR) 

Law No 3448 on the re-use of public sector information and the regulation 
of  issues  within  the  competency  of  the  Ministry  of  Interior,  Public 
Administration and Decentralisation (2006, amended in 2007) 

Ireland (IE) 

The  European  Communities  (Re-use  of  Public  Sector  Information) 
Regulations (2005) 

Italy (IT) 

Legislative Decree No 36 of 24 January implementing Directive 2003/98 on 
the re-use of public sector information (2006) 

Luxembourg (LU)  Law on the re-use of public sector information (2007) 

Malta (MT) 

European Union Act (Cap. 460) Re-use of Public Sector Information Order 
( 2007) 

Romania (RO) 

Law  109/2007  regarding  re-use  of  public  institutions  information  (2007); 
Law on access to Information of Public Character (2003) 

United Kingdom 
(UK) 

The Re-use of public sector information regulations (2005) 

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33 

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II. Amendments to the existing legal framework 

Member State 

National measures transposing the Directive 

Austria (AT) 

A  series  of  federal  measures  transposing  the  PSI  Directive  in  particular 
Länder (2005-2007) 

Bulgaria (BU) 

Law amending Access to Public Information Act (2007)  

Czech Republic 
(CZ) 

Denmark (DK) 

Finland (FI) 

France (FR) 

Law amending Free Access to Information Act No 1061/999 (2006) 

Act on the re-use of public sector information No 596/24.6 (2005, amended 
in 2008); Public Administration Act No 571/19.12 (1985); 
Access to Public Administrative Documents Act No 572/19.12 (1985) 

Act  on  Transparency  in  Government  (1999);  Act  on  Criteria  for  Charges 
Payable  to  the  State  (1992);  Act  on  Sovereignty  of  the  Island  of  Åland 
(1991) 

Act No 78-753, as amended by Order 2005-650 of 6 June 2005, on freedom 
of access to administrative documents and the re-use of public information; 
Decree No 20051755 (2005) 

Lithuania (LT) 

Law on access to information from central and local government institutions 
(2006); Law on State Registers (2004) 

Latvia (LV) 

Amendments to the act on freedom of information (2006); Act on freedom 
of information (1998) 

Netherlands (NL) 

Amendment  of  the  government  information  act  (WOB)  and  a  number  of 
other  acts  in  connection  with  implementation  of  Directive  2003/98/EC 
(2005); Explanatory Memorandum (attached to the above amendment) 

Portugal (PT) 

Law No 46/2007 transposing the PSI Directive (2007) 

Sweden (SE) 

Regulation on the re-use of public sector information (2008) and a series of 
existing legislation, including Freedom of the Press Order (1949); Fees and 
Charges  Order 
(1986); 
Constitutional Act (1989) 

(1992);  Administrative  Procedures  Act 

Slovenia (SI) 

Law on the re-use of public sector information (2005) and amendments to 
the  Law  on  access  to  Information  of  Public  Character  (2005);  Law  on 
access to Information of Public Character (2003) 

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34 

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III. No amendments to the existing legal framework regarding transposition of the PSI 
Directive 

Member State 

National measures transposing the Directive 

Estonia (EE) 

The Public Information Act (consolidated text March 2003) 

Hungary (HU) 

A  series  of  existing  national  measures,  including  Constitution  of  the 
Republic  of  Hungary  (1949,  amended  1989);  Data  Protection  Act  (1992, 
amended in 2003 and in 2005) 

Act  on  equal  treatment  and  promoting equality  of  opportunity  (2003);  Act 
on freedom of electronic information (2005) 

Poland (PL) 

A  series  of  existing  national  measures,  including  Act  on  Freedom  of 
Business  Activity  (2004);  Act  on  Access  to  Public  Information  (2001); 
Constitution  of  the  Republic  of  Poland  (1997);  Code  of  Administrative 
Procedure (1960) 

Slovak Republic 

(SK) 

A series of existing legislation, including The freedom of Information Act 
211/2000 (2000); Code of Administrative procedure (amended in 2002 and 
in 2003) 

Member State 
of the EEA 

National measures related to the PSI  
 Directive 

Iceland 

Law No 161/2006 amending the information law No 50/1996 

Liechtenstein 

Law  No  172/016  on  the  further  use  of  public  sector  information 
implementing  the  PSI  Directive  (Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz; 
IWG) (2008)  

Norway 

Act 19 May 2006 no 16 relating to right of access to documents held by the 
public administration and public undertakings 

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35 

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