Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2018)234 - Re-use of public sector information (recast) - Main contents
Please note
This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
dossier | COM(2018)234 - Re-use of public sector information (recast). |
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source | COM(2018)234 ![]() |
date | 25-04-2018 |
1. CONTEXTOFTHEPROPOSAL
• Reasons for and objectives of the proposal
The public sector in EU Member States produces vast amounts of data, e.g. meteorological data, digital maps, statistics and legal information. This information is a valuable resource for the digital economy. It is not only used as valuable raw material for the production of data-based services and applications, but also brings greater efficiency to the delivery of private and public services and better informed decision-making. Therefore, the EU has been promoting the re-use of public sector information (‘PSI’) for several years.
Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and the Council on the re-use of public sector information (‘PSI Directive’) was adopted on 17 November 2003. The Directive aimed to facilitate the re-use of PSI throughout the Union by harmonising the basic conditions for reuse and removing major barriers to re-use in the internal market. It introduced provisions on non-discrimination, charging, exclusive arrangements, transparency, licensing and practical tools to facilitate the discovery and re-use of public sector information.
In July 2013 Directive 2003/98/EC was amended by Directive 2013/37/EU, with the aim to encourage Member States to make as much material held by public sector bodies available for re-use as possible. The modifications introduced an obligation to allow the re-use of generally accessible public data, expanded the scope of the Directive to include documents1 from public libraries, museums and archives, established a default charging rule limited to the marginal cost for reproduction, provision and dissemination of the information, and obliged public sector bodies to be more transparent about the charging rules and conditions they apply. The amending Directive was implemented into national legislation by all 28 EU Member States.
Article 13 of the Directive calls on the European Commission to carry out a review of the application of the Directive and to communicate the results, together with any proposal for amendments, before 18 July 2018. The review was carried out by the Commission and resulted in the publication of an evaluation report2. The report found that the Directive continues to contribute to the achievement of its main policy objectives, but there are a number of issues that need to be addressed in order to fully exploit the potential of public sector information for the European economy and society. They include provision of real-time access to dynamic data via adequate technical means, increasing the supply of high-value public data for re-use, preventing the emergence of new forms of exclusive arrangements, limiting the use of exceptions to the principle of charging the marginal cost and clarifying the relationship between the PSI Directive and certain related legal instruments.
This proposal aims to address the above issues, adapting the Directive to the recent developments in the field of data management and use. The overall objective is to contribute to the strengthening of the EU’s data-economy by increasing the amount of public sector data available for re-use, ensuring fair competition and easy access to markets based on public sector information, and enhancing cross-border innovation based on data.
The terms 'document', as defined in Article 2 of the Directive, should be understood broadly, and as such it denotes also such concepts as data and content. SWD(2018) 145.
2
At the same time, the review of the PSI Directive is an important part of the initiative on accessibility and re-use of public and publicly funded data announced by the Commission in the Mid-Term Review of the Digital Single Market (DSM) Strategy3.
• Consistency with existing policy provisions in the policy area
The proposal pursues the objectives set out in the DSM Strategy and is consistent with existing legal instruments.
It is coherent with the data protection legislation in force, namely the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)4 and the revised ePrivacy rules5. It is clear that the relationship between data protection law and PSI re-use – in the sense that both the public sector body and the re-user must comply with data protection law in full – is an established part of Union law.
The proposal also seeks to clarify the relationship between the PSI Directive and the sui generis right provided for in Article 7 of the Database Directive6. The proposal does not alter the protection given by Article 7 to public sector bodies that are makers of databases, nor does it change the legal situation under the current Directive which prevented public sector bodies from exercising the sui generis protection right to prohibit or restrict the re-use of data contained in databases.
Finally, the proposal builds on the proposal for a Regulation on the free flow of non-personal data7, which, once adopted, will ensure a more competitive and integrated internal market for data storage and other processing services, complementing the provisions of the PSI Directive.
• Consistency with other Union policies
By creating the right conditions for improved access to and re-use of public sector data across the Union, this proposal complements other initiatives under the Digital Single Market strategy.
It is consistent with the guidance that the Commission has published on data sharing between businesses and between businesses and the public sector8, which is a follow-up to the public consultation launched with the Communication 'Building a European Data Economy'.9 The guidance concerns a range of issues around sharing the ever-increasing amount of data, often created in an automated manner by machines or processes based on emerging technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT).
Access to and re-use of public sector data is recognised as an important driver in the area of big data analytics and Artificial Intelligence. In this context the proposal complements the
COM(2017) 228 final.
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural
persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and
repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the respect for
private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications and repealing Directive
2002/58/EC, COM(2017) 10 final.
protection of databases.
COM(2017) 495 final.
SWD(2018) 125.
COM(2017) 9 final.
5
6
initiative on next generation supercomputers, able to work ten times faster than the fastest computer in existence today, which will be needed to re-combine, correlate and mash up the ever growing amounts of data. The EU aims to take a lead in this domain with an investment of 1 billion EUR of public funding for a Joint Undertaking aimed at setting up a High-
Performance-Computing network by 2023.10
The PSI Directive is a legal instrument allowing for the implementation of a horizontal policy that aims to faciliate the re-use of public sector information. At the same time it remains consistent with sectoral legislation laying down conditons for access to and reuse of data in specific areas.
For example, access to and re-use of relevant data generated in the transport sector, is ensured by legislation on the provision of EU-wide multimodal travel information services11. In the energy sector, a recent proposal for a recast of the Electricity Directive12 includes provisions giving consumers the possibility to grant third parties access to their consumption data, while in the water sector the Commission has proposed provisions on the sharing of water parameters data in the context of the review of the Directive on the quality of water intended for human consumption13. While these rules are driven by sector-specific concerns and focus on selected datasets, the proposal lays down a horizontal framework providing minimum harmonisation of re-use conditions across domains and sectors.
The proposal is also consistent with and builds on the INSPIRE Directive14, which establishes a legal and technical interoperability framework for the sharing of spatial data held by public authorities for the purpose of environmental policies and policies and activities having an impact on the environment. Consequently, spatial information is covered by both the PSI Directive and the INSPIRE Directive. However, while the latter focuses technically on data access services, interoperability models and mandatory data-sharing between administrations, the former regulates the re-use of spatial datasets, including the conditions for re-use by third parties. For increased legal certainty, the proposal contains a clarification of the relationship between the two directives.
Finally, the proposal builds on the Commission's initiatives in the area of open access and open science, such as the Recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information, which was revised15 at the same time as the PSI Directive. It also complements the actions supporting the development of tools and services underpinning Open Science and promoting a pan-European access channel to the resources in the context of the European Open Science Cloud.
10
11
12
13
14
15
COM(2018) 8 final.
multimodal travel information services.
internal market in electricity (recast), COM/2016/0864 final/2.
Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the quality of water intended
for human consumption (recast), COM/2017/0753 final.
Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE).
C(2018) 2375.
2. LEGALBASIS, SUBSIDIARITYAND PROPORTIONALITY
• Legal basis
The PSI Directive was adopted on the basis of Article 114 TFEU (95 TEC), as its subject matter concerned the proper functioning of the internal market and the free circulation of services. Any amendments to the Directive must therefore have the same legal basis.
• Subsidiarity (for non-exclusive competence)
The proposal complies with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). This implies a positive assessment of two aspects: the necessity test and the EU added value test.
The necessity test assesses if the objectives of the proposal can be sufficiently achieved by Member States. The removal of the remaining obstacles to an open re-use of public sector information and simultaneously aligning the legal framework to the evolving digital socio-economic environment cannot be achieved by Member States alone. Diverging national legal solutions would likely compromise the growing tendency towards cross-border re-use, whereas the different levels of open data readiness across EU Member States would persist or deepen, having a negative effect on the homogeneity and competitiveness within the Digital Single Market. The actions proposed are proportionate, since national intervention will not be able to achieve the same results (increase in openly re-useable PSI), whilst at the same time ensuring a competitive and non-discriminatory environment across the entire Single Market. The proposed actions can be seen as the next step towards full availability of PSI for re-use: a policy objective accepted by the Member States already in 2003 and confirmed in 2013. On the other hand, for scientific information, the proposal limits itself to ensuring legal re-usability of research data and only such research data that has already been made openly accessible as a result of obligations under national law or resulting from agreements with research funding bodies. It does not extend one uniform set of rules on how to ensure access to and re-use of all scientific information, but leaves this to Member States to define.
The proposal has also been positively assessed as regards EU added value. This was clearly confirmed during the process of evaluation of the current version of the PSI Directive16, which revealed that it is seen as an important instrument that has played a role in encouraging the national authorities to open up more public sector data across the EU and in the creation of an EU-wide market for products and services based on PSI.
• Proportionality
The proposal complies with the principle of proportionality as set out in Article 5 TEU, as it contains provisions that do not go beyond what is necessary to solve the identified problems and achieve its objectives.
The proposal puts forward a balanced yet focused policy intervention. By targeting the new requirements at areas where change is necessary, it reduces unnecessary compliance burden in areas where change is not essential but difficult to enact. In addition, the intervention logic tested in the previous revision of the Directive (ensuring a competitive market for PSI re-use as a first step, before the application of an obligation to allow re-use) has proved to be an efficient strategy, ensuring the attainment of objectives for all groups of bodies successively brought within the scope of the Directive, while allowing for an ample adjustment period.
16 SWD(2018) 145.
The accompanying impact assessment17
accompanying impact assessment provides more details on the proportionality and cost effectiveness of the options in this legislative proposal.
Choice
of the instrument
This proposal substantially amends Directive 2003/98/EC and adds a number of new provisions. In the interest of clarity, it is proposed to use the recasting method. Given that the instrument being recast is a Directive, for reasons of consistency of legal drafting and to facilitate Member States transposition of the act, this proposal is also for a Directive.
3. RESULTS OF EX-POST EVALUATIONS, STAKEHOLDER
Contents
- CONSULTATIONS
- Access to and re-use of public sector data is recognised as an important driver in the area of big data analytics and Artificial Intelligence. In this context the proposal complements the
- Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural
- Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the respect for
- Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1926 of 31 May 2017 supplementing Directive
- 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the provision of EU-wide
- Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on common rules for the
- Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the quality of water intended
- Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an
- 17 18
- A new Chapter V has been added which defines a specific category of high-value datasets. The category of high-value datasets is a subset of documents to which the Directive applies
ANDIMPACTASSESSMENTS
• Ex-post evaluations/fitness checks of existing legislation
As part of the Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT), the existing PSI Directive was subject to an evaluation. In line with the Better Regulation guidelines, the evaluation assessed the evaluation criteria of effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, relevance and EU added value of the intervention. It also assessed the economic, social and environmental impacts the intervention. The evaluation aimed to identify opportunities to reduce regulatory costs and to simplify the existing legislation without negatively affecting the achievement of the underlying policy goals.
The evaluation report18 has confirmed that overall the PSI Directive works well. It continues to contribute to the achievement of its main policy objectives, which are to stimulate the digital content market for PSI-based products and services, to stimulate cross-border exploitation of PSI and to prevent distortions of competition on the EU market. At the same time, it has had a favourable impact on transparency, citizen empowerment, and public sector efficiency.
However, the report also indicates that there are a number of issues that would need to be addressed in order to fully exploit the potential of public sector information for the European economy and society: provision of real-time access to dynamic data via adequate technical means, reducing the restrictions, including financial barriers, on the re-use of high-value public data, acknowledging that relevant data are often generated in the context of the provision of certain services of general economic interest by public undertakings and by publicly funded research rather than by the public sector as such, the existence of new forms of exclusive arrangements, the use of exceptions to the principle of charging the marginal cost and the relationship between the PSI Directive and certain related legal instruments.
Stakeholder
consultations
The Commission consulted on the review of the PSI Directive between June 2017 and late January 2018. The aim was to assess the functioning of the Directive, consider the scope of the review and reflect on policy options. During the consultation process the opinions of both PSI holders (public bodies) and re-users (public, private, commercial and non commercial actors) were sought.
SWD(2018) 127. SWD(2018) 145.
An Inception Impact Assessment was published on the dedicated Better Regulation webpage and it was available for feedback for 4 weeks (18 September 2017 - 16 October 2017). Seven stakeholders sent replies.
A public online consultation was published on the dedicated Consultations webpage and it was available for feedback for 12 weeks (19 September 2017 - 15 December 2017). All interested parties, including governments, public sector content holders and users, commercial and non-commercial re-users, experts and academics as well as citizens were invited to contribute. The online questionnaire covered both the evaluation of the current Directive implementation and the problems, objectives and possible options for the future. Respondents also had the opportunity to upload a document, such as a position paper. With several targeted actions, the Commission made stakeholders aware of the public online consultation and called on them to participate. Feedback was received from 273 stakeholders. A total of 56 papers received until the end of the consultation process, end of January 2018, were taken into account.
As part of the evaluation and impact assessment process, a number of stakeholder events were also organised to address particular issues and/or target specific stakeholders, including a public hearing held on 19 January 2018, which was open to anyone wishing to contribute to the debate on the future shape of the PSI Directive. Furthermore, several ad hoc meetings have taken place with stakeholders' representatives.
The overall conclusion from the consultation was that although on the whole the PSI Directive works well, there are areas which should be reviewed, such as the availability of dynamic data, charging rules, and the wider availability of high-value PSI, including research data and data generated in the context of the provision of a public task.
• Collection and use of expertise
The process of preparing the proposal was supported by a study on the functioning of the PSI Directive (SMART 2017/0061)19. The aim of the study was to assist the Commission in evaluating the existing legal and policy framework applicable to data access and re-use (assessing the role which the PSI Directive has played in promoting PSI re-use across Europe), and in checking whether it could be improved to address some of the weaknesses identified and/or new issues which have emerged since the last revision of the Directive (in particular by assessing the expected impacts of a number of policy options/combinations thereof). The study relied on a combination of sources and methods, including strategic interviews, desk research, interviews with stakeholders at the EU and national levels, workshops with public sector practitioners and academics, as well as with PSI re-users and data economy players, online surveys with public authorities, including public cultural institutions, education and research bodies, as well as the re-user community, and analysis of the public online consultation launched by the Commission.
As part of the preparatory work, the Commission has also analysed the latest Open Data Maturity in Europe report20, which measures Open Data maturity across Europe through a series of indicators aligned with the provisions of the PSI Directive. This analysis was complemented with information from the available Member States reports, received as part of monitoring compliance with the PSI Directive pursuant to its Article 13(2). Additional input
19 The study was led by a consortium consisting of Deloitte, Open Evidence, Wik Consult, Time Lex, Spark, and Lisbon Council.
20 www.europeandataportal.eu/en/highlights">https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/highlights
from Member States was received at a meeting of the Member State Expert Group on PSI 15 November 2017 and at a meeting of the DSM Strategic Group on 22 February 2018.
Impact
assessment
The proposal is based on an impact assessment, which received a positive opinion with reservations from the Commission’s Regulatory Scrutiny Board on 16 March 201821. The issues raised by the Regulatory Scrutiny Board were addressed in the revised version of the Impact Assessment Staff Working Document22, in which a specific section details the changes made following the Regulatory Scrutiny Board’s opinion.
The following options were considered in the impact assessment: a) a baseline scenario (maintaining the current approach without changes); b) discontinuing existing EU action (repeal of the PSI Directive); c) soft law measures only; and d) a packaged solution consisting of both amendments of the PSI Directive and soft law.
While options b) and c) were discarded at an early stage, option a) was retained as the baseline scenario, while option d) was presented as two possible packages, one with all elements of lower legislative intensity, and the other one with all elements of higher legislative intensity. The elements covered in each package were the use of APIs for dynamic data, the review of charging rules, the availability of data resulting from public research funding and data held by both public undertakings and private operators from the transport and utilities sector, as well as the data lock-in effect.
Both packages were subject to a thorough analysis against the baseline. Based on the evidence presented in the impact assessment, a mixed package of lower intensity regulatory intervention combined with an update of existing soft law was chosen as the preferred option, based on the following elements:
Dynamic data/APIs: a ‘soft’ obligation for Member States to make dynamic data available in a timely manner and to introduce APIs. For a limited number of fundamental high-value datasets (to be adopted through a Delegated Act) there will be a hard obligation to do so.
Charging: tighten the rules for Member States for invoking the exceptions to the general rule that public sector bodies cannot charge more than marginal costs for dissemination. Create a list of fundamental high-value datasets that should be freely available in all Member States (same datasets as above, to be adopted through a Delegated Act).
Data in the transport and utilities sector: only public undertakings will be covered, not private companies. A limited set of obligations will apply: public undertakings can charge above marginal costs for dissemination and are under no obligation to release the data they do not want to release.
Research data: Member States will be obliged to develop policies for open access to research data resulting from publicly funded research while keeping flexibility in implementation. The PSI Directive will also cover research data that have already been made accessible as a result of open access mandates, focusing on re-usability aspects.
Non-exclusivity: transparency requirements for public-private agreements involving public sector information (ex-ante check, possibly by national competition authorities, and openness of the actual agreement).
21 SEC(2018) 206.
22 SWD(2018) 127.
on
This is combined with an update of the Recommendation on the access to and preservation of scientific information23 and a clarification of the interaction between the PSI Directive and the Database and INSPIRE Directives.
The chosen option allows for a targeted and proportional intervention, amounting to an incremental strengthening of the Commission's open data policy. It is believed that it will lead to a significant improvement over the baseline scenario. It is broadly acceptable to stakeholders and can be realistically enacted within a reasonable timeframe due to lack of notable Member State opposition. Although the benefits of the higher intensity regulatory intervention scenario were considered to be substantial, that scenario was also generally characterised by a lower feasibility, higher compliance costs, and higher risks for legal and policy coherence.
• Regulatory fitness and simplification
The proposal constitutes an important contribution to the achievement of REFIT objectives. It affects two large sets of stakeholders: re-users and bodies holding documents covered by the Directive, but it only imposes obligations on the latter. When considering these obligations, it should be borne in mind that several requirements of the Directive, notably those related to the practical arrangements for making data available, are part of an overall effort towards digitising the public administration24 rather than specific PSI Directive-related costs.
Nevertheless, the proposal contains provisions which, in line with the Commission's REFIT programme, aim at further reduction of administrative burden and increased cost savings related to the implementation of the Directive, inter alia through charging rules and clarifying the interplay with other EU legal instruments, such as the Database and INSPIRE directives. Additionally, enhanced use of APIs and proactive publishing of dynamic data online will result in a decrease of administrative burden for public sector bodies due to a lower number of re-use requests to process and a lower risk of complaints (including litigation), while discontinued reporting obligation will reduce administrative burden and related costs of public sector bodies on local, regional and national level.
For holders of documents to which the Directive extends as a result of this initiative, the proposal aims at limiting the administrative burden. For documents held by certain public undertakings that are providing a service of general economic interest the proposal limits the impact in three ways. First, obligations under this Directive only apply insofar as the public undertaking in question has taken the decision to make certain documents available for re-use. Second, the procedural obligations to process a request for re-use in a certain manner and within specific time-limits do not apply to this group of data holders. Finally, the obligations to make available documents through certain technical means are subject to exceptions if they are too burdensome on the undertakings. For research data, a specific category of documents produced by scientific researchers, the proposal limits the impact by only applying to such research data for which the researcher has already made all relevant efforts in order to make the data publicly accessible and in particular through web-based repositories that are designed to automate the dissemination process, making any intervention by the researcher in question unnecessary. Such web-based repositories, typically funded by academic institutions, have, however, dedicated helpdesks in order to assist re-users in terms of technical problems with accessing documents they contain.
23 C(2018) 2375.
24 See: Policy action 4 of the Tallinn Declaration, https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ministerial-declaration-egovernment-tallinn-declaration.
At the same time the proposal makes it considerably easier for commercial entities (mostly SMEs) to benefit from the online availability of high quality data without cost. This will eliminate the need to make individual requests, as well as any transactional costs, thus contributing additionally to the REFIT objectives.
• Fundamental rights
The proposal does not pose any specific challenges in terms of compliance with fundamental rights. The proposal is in line with the right to the protection of personal data (Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights).
4. BUDGETARYIMPLICATIONS
The proposal has no impact on the European Union budget.
5. OTHERELEMENTS
• Implementation plans and monitoring, evaluation and reporting arrangements
The Commission will monitor the impact of the Directive through a regular landscaping exercise performed by the European Data Portal, which feeds the annual Open Data Maturity report.
The review clause has been modified so as to allow for the next evaluation of the impact of the Directive to take place four years after the transposition date of the amending Directive. The evaluation will examine whether the Directive has contributed to the achievement of its overall aim, which is to contribute to the strengthening of the EU’s data-economy by enhancing the positive effect of the re-use of public sector data on the economy and society. It will be based on the five criteria of efficiency, effectiveness, relevance, coherence and EU value added and will provide the basis for impact assessments of possible further measures.
As concerns research data, the national points of reference established by the Recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information of 17 July 2012 as revised on 25 April 201825 will report on the follow-up.
Explanatory
documents
Considering the scope of the proposal and the fact that it is a recast of an existing directive, which all Member States have transposed in full, it is neither justified nor proportionate to require explanatory documents on the transposition.
• Detailed explanation of the specific provisions of the proposal
Chapter I defines the substantive scope of the Directive and the general principle.
With the recast the scope of application of the Directive shall be extended to documents held by public undertakings active in the areas defined in the Directive 2014/25/EU on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors and by public undertakings acting as public service operators under Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 insofar as they are were produced as part of the provision of services in the general interest, as defined by law or other binding rules in the Member State.
25 C(2018) 2375.
The scope shall also be extended to certain research data, a specific category of documents produced as part of scientific research, namely results of the scientific fact-finding process (experiments, surveys and similar) that are at the basis of the scientific process, while publications in scientific journals continue to be excluded from the scope as they pose additional challenges in terms of rights management. Consequently, the previous exemption of documents held by educational and research establishments, including organisations established for the transfer of research results, schools and universities, except university libraries, will be limited.
The general principle that documents falling within the scope of the Directive are re-usable for commercial and non-commercial purposes under the conditions set forth in this Directive (Article 3) is unchanged for documents within the scope of the Directive before the recast. For documents to which the scope of application is extended by the recast, the general principle applies only insofar as the public undertakings in question have made the documents available for re-use (identical to the provisions currently applying to documents in which libraries, including university libraries, museums and archives hold intellectual property rights (Article 3(2) of Directive 2003/98/EC as amended by Directive 2013/13/EU)) or – in the case of research data – where such research data have been made available by the researcher through a web-based research data repository as a result of requirements imposed by research funders on the researcher to allow access to and re-use of such data to a wider public ("Open Access funder mandate").
Article 1(6) clarifies that the so-called sui generis right protecting makers of databases provided for in Article 7 of Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases cannot be invoked by a public sector body which is the rightholder as a ground to prohibit re-use of the content of the database.
Chapter II (Article 4) is amended so as to specify that the procedural requirements shall not apply to public undertakings or with respect to research data in order to minimise the administrative impact for the relevant bodies or organisations.
Chapter III includes a series of adaptations to the conditions and the way in which data are made available for re-use. Article 5 takes account of the growing importance of dynamic ("real-time") data and includes the requirement on public sector bodies to make such data available through an Application Programming Interface (API). Article 6 is amended to specifiy that documents may also be provided free of charge . Free provision of documents shall in particular apply to research data and to high-value datasets defined in accordance with a delegated act under Article 13. The proposal acknowledges that the costs for anonymising documents contaning personal data can be included in cost calculation . Article 10 specifies that Member States shall support the availability of research data by adopting national policies and relevant actions aiming at making all publicly funded research data openly available ('open access policies'). It also provides that data already available in 'open access' research data repositories shall be re-usable for commercial and non-commercial purposes according to the provisions of the Directive.
Chapter IV (Article 12) is amended so as to specify that the prohibition of exclusive arrangements shall also extend to such arrangements that do not expressly grant an exclusive right in the re-use of documents, but may lead to a situation where access is limited to one or very few re-users.
A new Chapter V has been added which defines a specific category of high-value datasets. The category of high-value datasets is a subset of documents to which the Directive applies
according to its Article 1 and the re-use of which is associated with important socio-economic benefits. The list of such high-value datasets shall be determined in a delegated act pursuant to Article 290 TFEU. This delegated act shall also specify the modalities of their publication and re-use. In principle, the re-use of such high-value datasets should be free of charge and for dynamic content Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) shall be used as a means of dissemination.
I * 2003/98/EC (adapted)_________