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The INSPIRE Directive

The OpenGeoData letter addresses a collection of points, to do with the INSPIRE directive on access to and standards environmental spatial data in Europe. We believe that the legislation as it is drawn up, does not reflect the needs and practises of those who will be affected by it.

OpenEuroData contains some more reflections on European practise in freedom of access to government held information.

Access to Environmental Information

From Roger Longhorn

Environmental information: New directive giving the public
better access takes effect

New rules giving the European public better access to
environmental information become binding for all European
Union Member States today. The new directive strengthens the
existing EU rules in this area, aligning them with the
environmental information requirements of the 1998 Aarhus
Convention. This Convention grants the public access to
environmental information, provides for public participation
in environmental decision-making and allows the public to
seek redress when environmental law is infringed. The new
rules are a key step towards improved transparency in
environmental policy making. It will pave the way for giving
citizens a greater say in environmental matters.

Stavros Dimas, Commissioner for the Environment, said:
Europes citizens now have not only the freedom but also
the right to obtain environmental information that is held
or produced by public authorities.He added: Information
can be a powerful catalyst for change towards increased
protection of the environment and I hope citizens will
make the best use of
it.

The new directive on public access to environmental
information (Directive 2003/4/EC) replaces an earlier
directive dating from 1990 (Directive
90/313/EEC). It provides that every natural or legal person,
       regardless of citizenship, nationality or residence,
       has a right of access to environmental information
       held or produced by public authorities. Examples of
       such information are data on emissions into the
       environment, their impact on public health and the
       results of environmental impact assessments.

The central elements of the new directive are:
   * To grant a right of access to environmental information
     (as opposed to freedom of access currently) and to
     ensure that environmental information is made available
     and disseminated actively to the public;
   * A broader definition of environmental information as
     well as a more detailed definition of public
     authorities
   * A deadline of one month (reduced from two currently)
     for public authorities to supply the information
     requested;
   * Clarification of the circumstances under which
     authorities may refuse to provide information. Access
     to information shall be granted if the public interest
     served by the disclosure outweighs the interest served
     by a refusal;
   * Two types of review procedures have been laid down for
     the public to challenge acts or omissions of public
     authorities relating to requests for environmental
     information. To date, the Commission has received
     official notifications from nine Member States of their
     national measures to transpose the directive.
     Infringement procedures will be initiated soon against
     those that have not notified their national measures.

Background

In December, the Environment Council gave the green light
for the EU to ratify the Aarhus Convention and also reached
political agreement on a Regulation that will apply the
Conventions provisions to Community institutions and bodies.
Besides public access to environmental information, the EU
is also bringing itself into line with the two other
dimensions of the Aarhus Convention. A directive on public
participation in decision-making, adopted in 2003, will take
effect in June 2005. A directive covering the third pillar
of the Convention, access to justice in environmental
matters, was proposed by the Commission in October 2003 and
is still under discussion in the Council.



Just one more existing EC Directive that has an impact on
how the draft INSPIRE Directive might be implemented, and
which of the environmentally related data types should be
made easily accessible under the new environmental info
access Directive (Directive 2003/4/EC). Sadly, most such
environmentally related thematic data is relegated to "Annex
III" status in the current INSPIRE text, i.e. INSPIRE's (as
yet unspecified) implementing rules do not need to be met
for this data until 2012 to 2013.

So I imagine that the Member State agencies responsible for
answering citizens' queries on environmental data will need
to continue creating their own environmental information
infrastructures in order to be able to adhere to the new
Directive in as cost-efficient a manner as possible.

And of course, much of this information is already to be
made available under various national laws on Freedom of
Information within various Member States, as with the UK's
new Freedom of Information Act (which is seeing heavy use in
its first weeks of implementation!).

And this is in addition to all that general public sector
information (including GI) soon to be made available under
the PSI Exploitation Directive, due for Member State
implementation by 1 July 2005, not only for access but for
full exploitation.

Makes you wonder just where INSPIRE fits in to the overall
picture since its official "underpinning" is still tied to
environmental data, and it covers only public sector data
(not privately held/owned data).

One has to ask the difficult questions that are facing the
government agencies who need to respond to the two existing
Directives (as opposed to a draft Directive not yet at its
first reading in Parliament), i.e.

"What infrastructure must I put in place now - today - in
order to satisfy these two EC Directives? What metadata
"standard(s)" (because they keep changing)? What access
regimes (portals?, e-mail requests?, postal requests?)? What
charging regimes (cost of distribution? cost of preparation?
cost of preparation and distribution? fixed cost per
request?)? Do some of these regulations already contradict
others in existence or about to come into existence?"

Isn't information infrastructure fun?!