EU Institutions

• More rapporteurs chosen in European Parliament

Member States

• Finland: Topographic data will be made available to all
• French Departement to Launch Data Portal

Stakeholders

• World Bank and Google Announce Map Maker Collaboration
• LAPSI Award for Datos.gob.es

MeteoFrance have lost the case against them brought by Meteo Consult to force them to separate their commercial activities fully from their "public task", to account fully for their commercial activities and to have such accounts audited and published. Further details of the judgement are at http://www.linfo.re/-France-/L-Autorite-de-la-Concurrence-epingle-Meteo-France

EU Institutions

• European Council starts work on PSI Directive
• European Parliament chooses rapporteur

Member States

• Etalab's Answers to On-line Questions
• Germany Launches Open Gov Study
• UK cabinet office: More open data means better opportunities
• Swiss To Found Open Data Association

The EU Commission's “Open Data Package” was published on 12th December 2011.  There are many promising elements, including policies that PRIMET and others haves been pushing hard to see implemented, including marginal cost, an independent authority for disputes, all data to be re-useable and in a machine readable format (where possible). However, there is still lots more work to be done.

 The provisional Communication is here: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/opendata2012/open_data_communication/opendata_EN.pdf

 The provisional Proposal is here: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/opendata2012/revision_of_PSI_Directive/proposal_directive_EN.pdf

 

The EC has published a major new study on the Pricing of Public Sector Information. PRIMET contributed significantly to this work and our publications are well referenced within it. The clear conclusion is that a move to a marginal cost pricing regime for meteorological data would result in strong economic growth in the sector and, more surprisingly, would benefit the Met Services both economically and in terms of the quality and robustness of their data.
To read the exectutive sumary of the report go to: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/opendata2012/

To obtain the full report  click here: