On February 15th 2023, , the European Commission decided to refer Belgium, Bulgaria, Latvia and the Netherlands to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to transpose EU rules on open data and the re-use of public sector data (Directive EU 2019/1024, referred to as the Open Data Directive) into national law.
While the deadline to transpose the Directive expired on 17 July 2021, the four Member States referred to still have not communicated all their national measures, despite the letters of formal notice sent to them by the European Commission in September 2021, and the reasoned opinions sent to these Member States between April and June 2022. As guardian of the Treaties, the Commission has to watch over the full and correct transposition of EU law into national legislation, hence the decision today to refer them to the Court of Justice of the EU.
This comes as the last level resort measure for non or partial transposition of an EU directive and will most presumably trigger more pressing action by these four Member States to adapt their national laws to the Open Data Directive principles.
For the business information sector, this could mean an increased access to some datasets currently not shared by public bodies which fall under the prescriptions of the Open Data Directive.
Source: EU Press Corner
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