Public Sector Information :: Other activities :: Funding
Exclusive agreements
The PSI Directive forbids, as a general rule, the existence of exclusive
agreements (EAs) and the transitional period laid down in the Directive for
existing exclusive agreements ended on 31 December 2008.
According to the terms of the directive "…where an exclusive right is necessary
for the provision of a service in the public interest, the validity of the
reason for granting such an exclusive right shall be subject to regular review,
and shall, in any event, be reviewed every three years". The exclusive
arrangements established after the entry into force of this Directive shall be
transparent and made public"; furthermore, "Existing exclusive arrangements that
do not qualify for the exception under paragraph 2 (above) shall be terminated
at the end of the contract or in any case not later than 31 December 2008."
Supporting information by the Commission on when Exclusive Agreements occur may
be found
here.
Exclusive agreements (EA) between public sector bodies and private players have already been phased out in several Member States before the 31st December 2008 deadline, in application of the Directive. Examples of EAs that have been terminated include the Dutch car register and the Swedish population register.
However, so far, only two Member States – the Netherlands and the UK– (see
the
Netherlands and
UK (OPSI) reports) have taken action
to identify possible EAs within the public sector bodies in their respective
countries, before the 31st December 2008 deadline. Both assessments have indeed
identified the existence of EAs and their specific nature. No other Member
States have taken such a systematic approach to identifying and phasing out
these agreements. Sweden is currently considering undertaking this exercise in
2010.
The Commission is launching a study for assessing the existence of possible EAs
concluded by Public Sector Bodies within certain Member States.
The purpose of this study, is to collect relevant information from the public and the private side of the PSI markets (Supply and Demand) on the potential existence of Exclusive Agreements, in the light of Article 11 of the Directive.
A first set of Member States is
covered by the first phase of this project (France, etc…). Work has already
started end 2009. A second exercise will take place in the next years,
building on the methodology and experience of this one.