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What's New Archive

28 July 2008 - Liechtenstein implemented the PSI Directive as of 28 July 2008. The PSI Directive was implemented by the new Act of 29 May 2008 on the re-use of public sector information (Gesetz vom 29. Mai 2008 über die Weiterverwendung von Informationen öffentlicher Stellen - Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz, IWG, LR 172.016; www.gesetze.li)
21 July 2008 - Minutes (PDF file) of the 11th PSI Group meeting.
7 July 2008 - A public tender "European Public Sector Information (PSI) Platform" was published in Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) and the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union, 2008/S 129-170660. The purpose of the call is to establish a European PSI central platform to further stimulate action and monitor progress towards a stronger and more transparent environment for the growth of national and European markets in PSI re-use, following the review of the PSI Directive. The service will be built around an interactive web-based portal ("one-stop-shop"), providing news on European PSI developments, emerging good practices, examples of new products and services and legal cases around PSI re-use. The work will build on earlier activities supported through the Commission funded eContentPlus programme (notably the ePSIplus thematic network) and within Member States.
30 June 2008 - On 17-18 June 2008 Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy the OECD released the "Recommendation (PDF file) of the Council for Enhanced Access and More Effective Use of Public Sector Information". The Recommendation is designed as a general framework for Member countries to foster wider and more effective use of public sector information and content, and the generation of new uses from it. It lays out principles for openness and transparent conditions for re-use, quality and integrity, new technologies and long-term preservation, copyright, pricing, competition and redress, and international access.

13 June 2008 - ePSIplus conference "PSI Re-use – Who Takes Action Next?" was held in Brussels today. Horst Forster, Director, Directorate E of DG INFSO, addressed the participants with a speech "Re-use of Public Sector Information: Change, Growth and Transformation (PDF file).

ePSIplus is a Thematic Network, funded by the eContentplus programme, to support the implementation of the European Directive on Public Sector Information Re-use, in the period leading up to its review in 2008.

8 May 2008 - Today Belgian authorities notified the Commission last federal measures (see below), which complete implementation of the PSI Directive into national law. This means that all MS have now completed transposition of the PSI Directive.
- 29 avril 2008 - Arrêté royal relatif à la composition et au fonctionnement de la Commission d’accès aux et de réutilisation des documents administratifs (PDF file)
- 29 octobre 2007 - Arrêté royal fixant la procédure et les délais de traitement des demandes de réutilisation d’informations du secteur public ainsi que la surveillance de l’obligation de mise à disposition des documents administratifs (PDF file)
24 April 2008 - On 6 May 2008 the Digital Libraries and Public Sector Information unit (E4) is organising the 11th PSI Group meeting with representatives from Member States and industry. The meeting will focus on the review of the PSI Directive scheduled for this year, the views of the private sector for promoting PSI re-use and good practices and policies supporting the re-use of PSI.
24 April 2008 - On 29 April 2008 the Digital Libraries and Public Sector Information unit (E4) will organise together with the Copyright unit of the Publications Office (OPOCE) a meeting on "copyright and re-use of Commission information". E4 and OPOCE will present to the Commission services both a strategy and practical measures for dealing with the Commission's reusable information resources: how to identify them, clarify the conditions for re-use and how to promote their re-use. The subject of the meeting is in line with Commission Decision 2006/291/EC Euratom of 7 April 2006 on the re-use of Commission information. The meeting is targeted to re-use correspondents, web masters and publication correspondents of the different DGs.
14 March 2008 - The Prior Information Notice concerning the future call for tender "European public sector information (PSI) platform", was published in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union 2008/S 50-068020 (PDF file) on 12 March 2008.The Contract Notice will be published later this year and subsequently the tender specifications and the other tender documents will become available.
18 January 2008 - European Commission makes computer-assisted translation easier and more accessible: The European Commission is going a step further in its efforts to foster multilingualism as a key part of European unity in diversity. The Commission's collection of about 1 million sentences and their high quality translations in 22 of the 23 official EU languages — including those of the new Member States — is the biggest ever collection in so many languages and is now freely available. This kind of data is highly sought after by developers of machine translation systems in which automatic translation software "learns" from manually translated texts how words and phrases are correctly and contextually translated. The data can also help the development of other linguistic software tools such as grammar and spell checkers, online dictionaries and multilingual text classification systems. Full press release
10 January 2008 - The call for tender "Assessment of the re-use of public sector information (PSI) in the geographical...", published in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union 2007/S 121-147642 (PDF file) on 27 June 2007, has been awarded to Micus Management Consulting GmbH (PDF file).

Se also the news item from 27 June 2007.

11 December 2007 - Today Luxembourg notified the Commission of full transposition of the PSI Directive (Loi du 4 décembre 2007 sur la réutilisation des informations du secteur public; PDF file). Up to now 26 Member States have notified full transposition and 1 (Belgium) still remains to do so. For more information you can consult the Implementation page.

27 November 2007 - Today Spain notified the Commission of full transposition of the PSI Directive (LEY 37/2007, de 16 de noviembre, sobre reutilización de la información del sector público). Up to now 25 Member States have notified full transposition and 2 still remain to do so, namely Belgium and Luxembourg. For more information you can consult the Implementation page.

27 September 2007 - The Court of Justice condemned Spain and Luxembourg for failing to transpose the PSI Directive today.
- The European Commission v Kingdom of Spain (Case C-465/06; judgement in PDF file).
- The European Commission v Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg (Case C-529/06; judgement in PDF file).
7 September 2007 - Today Austria and Portugal notified the Commission of full transposition of the PSI Directive. With this act, Austria has completed full transposition of the PSI Directive through one Federal law and nine State laws.
- State Law of Salzburg (PDF file)
- Lei n.º 46/2007 de 24 de Agosto, Regula o acesso aos documentos administrativos e a sua reutilização... (PDF file)
By 7 September 2007, 24 Member States have notified complete transposition of the PSI Directive and 3 still remain to do so. For more information you can consult the Implementation page.
28 August 2007 - The minutes (PDF file) of the 10th PSI Group meeting were published.

31 July 2007 - Two years after UK implementation of The Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005 (PSI Regulations), the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) published a report (PDF file) today, on progress made in the UK in the field of PSI.

OPSI Website.
27 June 2007 - Call for tender: "Assessment of the re-use of public sector information (PSI) in the geographical (cartographic-mapping and cadastral) information, meteorogical information and legal information sectors" was published today in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union 2007/S 121-147642. The subject of the contract is to gather quantitative and factual data and information on the re-use of PSI as a means to measure the impact of the PSI Directive in the EU.

Opening of the tenders: 18 September 2007 (10.30 h)
25 June 2007 - The agenda and the presentations given at the 10th PSI Group meeting were published.
25 June 2007 - Today the UK Government responded to the OFT CUPI study (Office of Fair Trading, The Commercial Use of Public Information, PDF file). In its response (PDF file), the UK Government welcomed the OFT market study, which identifies some important and complex issues where the PSI market is not functioning as well as it could. The UK Government welcomed the OFT recommendations, and is able to accept the majority of them, but there are some that require further work. In its response, the UK Government also said that it is keen to establish what can be done, working with others, to address the issues identified by the OFT most effectively.

Consult also the news item of 11 December 2006.
19 June 2007 - Today the Bulgaria notified the Commission of the transposition of the PSI Directive into their national law (Act amending the Access to Public Information Act, BO original, EN translation, both documents are PDF files). Until today, 22 Member States have notified complete transposition of the PSI Directive and 5 still remain to do so. Check the implementation status of the PSI Directive in MS.
4 June 2007 - On 4-5 June 2007 an International Symposium "Public Data on the Private Market - New Regulations on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information" was held in Potsdam, Germany (Programme; PDF file; EN and DE language). On the first day of the symposium, 4 June 2007, Horst Forster, Director Digital Content and Cognitive Systems at the Information Society and Media Directorate General (European Commission) gave a speech "Public Sector Information: A Motor for Growth and Employment" (PDF file; EN language).

Website of the Symposium

25 May 2007 - Today the Romania notified the Commission of the transposition of the PSI Directive into their national law (PDF file; RO language). Until today, 21 Member States have notified complete transposition of the PSI Directive and 6 still remain to do so. Check the implementation status of the PSI Directive in MS.
10 May 2007 - The 10th meeting of the PSI Group will take place on 21 June 2007 in Luxembourg. The first part of the meeting will deal with the views of the private sector on PSI re-use, with the intervention representatives from industry. The second part of the meeting will focus on issues related to the transposition and application of the PSI Directive and on the INSPIRE initiative (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe). The last part will deal with good practices and policies supporting the re-use of PSI.
23 April 2007 - A book with a title "IWG – Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz Public Sector Information (2007, 380 pages, 978-3-7046-4957-7)" has been published by authors Mrs Elisabeth Weissenboeck and Mr Rainer Knyrim.
13 February 2007 - The minutes (PDF file) of the 9th PSI Group meeting were published.

9 January 2007 - The OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published on 21 December 2006 a summary report of the May 2006 workshop (PDF file) on increasing the access to PSI.

8 January 2007 - Bulgaria and Romania became members of the European Union as of 1 January 2007. Up to now 20 MS have notified full transposition of the PSI Directive and 7 still remain to do so. Check the implementation status of the PSI Directive in MS.
22 December 2006 - The European Commission is taking five Member States (Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and Luxembourg) to the European Court of Justice for failing to put into practice the Directive on the re-use of public sector information (PSI). The re-use of PSI has enormous economic potential as it represents a raw material for new added value services and products worth from €10-48 billion in the EU alone.

Read a press release published on the Europa portal. EN FR DE ES PT
20 December 2006 - The PSI Directive was implemented into German Law. On 18 December, the Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz (IWG) was published in the Official Journal (Bundesgesetzblatt) and on 19 December the law came into effect (PDF file of the law - Gesetz über die Weiterverwendungv on Informationen öffentlicher Stellen (lnformationsweitervenwendnugsgesetz - IWG)).

A collection of important portal sites on PSI in Germany.
15 December 2006 - A presentation on PSI Directive (PPT file), given by Luis Manuel Ferrão (13 December 2006, Vienna, Austria) at the workshop organised by the BundesMinisterium für Wirtshaft und Arbeit, was added in the Library.
11 December 2006 - The Office of Fair Trading (UK) published a study The Commercial Use of Public Information (PDF file; 700 KB). The OFT’s market study has found that more competition in PSI could benefit the UK economy by around £1billion a year. The study found that raw information is not as easily available as it should be, licensing arrangements are restrictive, prices are not always linked to costs and Public Sector Information Holders (PSIH) may be charging higher prices to competing businesses and giving them less attractive terms than their own value-added operations. The report has also found that much of the legislation and guidance which aims to ensure access to information is provided on an equal basis, lacks clarity and is inadequately monitored. As a result the full benefits of PSI are not being realised. The OFT concludes that PSIHs should:
- make as much PSI available as possible for commercial use/re-use;
- ensure that businesses have access to PSI at the earliest point that it is useful to them;
- provide access to information where the PSIH is the only supplier on an equal basis to all businesses and the PSIH itself;
- use proportionate cost-related pricing and to account separately for their monopoly activities and their value-added activities so that PSIH’s can demonstrate that they are providing and pricing information fairly and in a non-discriminatory manner, and
- enable the regulator (Office of Public Sector Information) to monitor PSIHs better, with improved enforcement and complaints procedures.
30 November 2006 - Some "older" documents were added to the Library (Proposal for a PSI Directive and Amended Proposal for a PSI Directive).
29 November 2006 - The agenda and the presentations given at the 9th Public Sector Information Group meeting are published on the PSI Group page. Minutes will follow. The meeting took place in Luxembourg on 28 November (see the message below).
24 November 2006 - The 9th Meeting of the PSI Group will take place in Luxembourg on 28 November 2006. The meeting will first of all discuss progress on the transposition and application of the PSI Directive in Member States and present the recent Commission Decision on the re-use of Commission information. The second part of the meeting will deal with complaints lodged to the Commission and in some Member States and the third part with good practices and policies supporting PSI re-use.
The PSI Group is a forum for the exchange of good practices between Member States on re-use of PSI. It also serves as a platform for discussing progress on the transposition and application of the PSI Directive 2003/98/EC, as well as other issues of common interest in relation to this Directive.
24 November 2006 - A revamped PSI Website was published on the Europa portal. The Information market Unit hopes you will find this Website useful. In order to better serve your specific needs, the Unit invites your suggests/comments to improve the PSI Website. Feel free to mail us at infso-psihelp@ec.europa.eu.
30-31 October 2006 - The ePSIplus Thematic Network Kick Off Meeting was held in Prague on 30 and 31 October. ePSIplus is a Thematic Network, funded by the eContentplus programme, to support the implementation of the Directive on PSI re-use, in the period leading up to its review in 2008.
23 October 2006 - In October Malta and Cyprus notified the Commission that they have transposed the PSI Directive into their national laws. Up to now, 19 Member States have notified complete transposition of the Directive and 6 still remain to do so. For more information you can consult the Implementation of the PSI Directive page.
1 September 2006 - MEPSIR study was published (three PDF files - Executive summary, Final report 1st part, Final report 2nd part). The study defines, tests and applies a methodology to measure the re-use of PSI in the Member States and Norway, serving as a basis for the review of the PSI Directive envisaged in 2008.
20 April 2006 - The Commission Decision on the Re-use of Commission Information (PDF file), adopted on 7 April 2006, was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
This Decision determines 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) with the aim of facilitating a wider re-use of information, enhancing the image of openness of the Commission, and avoiding unnecessary administrative burden for re-users and the Commission services alike. Consult also Re-use of Commission Information page.

Maintained by Information Society and Media DG, Unit E4 - Access to Information

Contact: infso-psihelp@ec.europa.eu