Europe's Fresh Proposal Advances Public Sector Data Transparency Across Europe

The European Commission has taken a significant step forward in promoting the reuse of public sector open data with the publication of a draft legislative proposal. Titled "laying down a list of specific high-value datasets and the arrangements for their publication and re-use," the proposal seeks to unify the European data economy and prevent legislative fragmentation.

The proposal outlines guidelines for EU member states to publish high-value datasets for reuse, focusing on six categories of data: geospatial, earth observation and environment, meteorological, statistics, companies and company ownership, and mobility data. The aim is to make these datasets more easily accessible via APIs and Creative Commons licensing, ensuring they can be used freely and legally by third parties.

The EU Data Act, effective from September 12, 2025, is another key development in this area. The Act establishes legal rights for businesses and consumers to access data they generate through connected devices, promoting data sharing and innovation by limiting contractual and technical lock-ins that inhibit switching service providers. The Act notably applies to manufacturers of IoT products, cloud service providers, and any entity collecting or using data from IoT devices, enforcing an "access by design" requirement ensuring products facilitate easy data transfer between providers.

The proposal emphasizes the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability, which are crucial for ensuring data can be easily discovered, accessed, and used across various platforms and services. It also underscores the need for technical solutions such as standardized APIs to ensure easy, secure, and interoperable access to data by third parties.

The Commission's draft legislation broadens the open data obligations in the Public Sector Information and INSPIRE directives, but it is limited to only a few high-value data sets. However, member states like Estonia, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Poland are already taking steps to open up publicly held data more than is supranationally required.

The proposal does not pose data protection risks for member states and allows public sector bodies to protect individuals' privacy and impose additional conditions on high-value data sets that include personal data. The INSPIRE directive, created in 2007, established general rules for spatial data in the EU to harmonize data used for environmental applications.

The Commission is advocating for creating supranational open data legislation that makes publicly-held data open and harmonized by default, with narrow limitations only when detrimental to the European public interest or Europeans' privacy. This legislative evolution reflects the EU’s ambition to foster a truly interoperable, reusable, and innovative data economy based on the principles of openness, transparency, and user empowerment.

Future efforts may broaden access via coordinated frameworks like the DSA’s data access rules for research, enhancing controlled reuse of valuable datasets across public and private domains. This legislative development is a significant stride towards creating a more open, transparent, and innovative European data economy.

[1] European Commission (2022). Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a European Open Data Portal and access to data generated by the Union's institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. [2] European Commission (2021). Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a European Data Innovation Centre. [3] European Commission (2021). Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a European Data Strategy. [4] European Commission (2021). Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Data Space. [5] European Commission (2022). Delegated Act on the European Data Strategy: Proposal for a delegated regulation of the European Commission on access to and use of data by qualified researchers.

The European Commission's draft legislative proposal aims to establish a unified European data economy by outlining guidelines for member states to publish high-value datasets, such as geospatial, earth observation and environment, meteorological, statistics, companies and company ownership, and mobility data.
The proposal seeks to enhance the reuse of public sector open data, promoting a data-driven and AI-centric innovation by making these datasets more accessible via APIs and Creative Commons licensing.
The EU Data Act, taking effect from September 12, 2025, is another significant development in data policy, granting businesses and consumers legal rights to access data generated through connected devices, thereby promoting data sharing and innovation.
The proposal emphasizes the importance of principles like findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability, which are critical for ensuring open data can be easily discovered and utilized across platforms and services.
Member states like Estonia, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Poland are already taking proactive steps to open up publicly held data beyond the requirements of the supranational regulations.
The proposal considers data protection, allowing public sector bodies to protect individuals' privacy and impose additional conditions on high-value data sets that include personal data.
The Commission's vision is to create a harmonized and interoperable European data economy, based on the principles of openness, transparency, and user empowerment, with future efforts aiming to broaden access via coordinated frameworks like the DSA’s data access rules for research.