Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-279"
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"en.20030924.8.3-279"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, of course, wish to compliment my colleague Mr van Velzen on his diligence as a rapporteur. He has extracted the best out of the situation. Every citizen in Europe has the right of access to information collected and stored by the public sector. Indeed, transparency on the part of the public sector is a good thing for democracy, and democracy comes free of charge in Europe. In addition, public sector information has significant economic potential. The Directive should lead to the emergence of an active trade in public sector information in the European Union, as in the United States. There is enormous unexplored potential, which could create a large number of jobs if exploited commercially, particularly via SMEs: small and medium-sized enterprises. I envisage a central role for the public sector here in giving impetus to a new market.
The Commission presented an ambitious proposal; but a number of Member States evidently have little interest in it. They have toned it down so much that we are left with the question whether the single market in public sector information will function in the longer term, let alone the short term. It has become clear that Member States are not prepared to make public sector information available free of charge, despite constantly making a great song and dance about eEurope and an information society for all. Fine words.
We have to follow things through. For information to be generally accessible, it goes without saying that the marginal costs of reproduction and distribution can be passed on. Now, however, it is permissible to increase the costs by ‘a reasonable’ profit margin. That is undesirable, as it creates unlimited possibilities for the authorities to make a profit: after all, who decides what is ‘reasonable’?
The proposal again talks about public sector documents instead of public sector information. This means that there is no guarantee that information reproduced electronically is also covered by the definition. Thus, public sector bodies are tempted to limit accessibility to printed documents. Straightforward access to public sector information, preferably via the Internet, reduces the distance between the European authorities and the citizen. The public sector should be encouraged to make as many documents as possible available to citizens electronically, therefore. That is a crucial precondition for the creation of eEurope: an information society for all."@en1
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