[geo-discuss] draft open letter to ministers before conciliation / 3rd reading

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,

I updated http://publicgeodata.org/Open_Letter_Third_Reading - below
the text as it stands now. I'm concerned that the preamble is a bit
long - takes a while to get to the point. We should have an appendix
with Amendments 21 and 27 as well as the standard appendix with
references to the PIRA, KPMG, etc studies. I'd really like to have a
doublecheck that we're not missing anything from 2nd reading too.

I'm also a bit concerned that this is heckling the council a bit much
- and that the last para should if possible outline a more
constructive 'technical' approach - but don't want to go on too long.

I'm sorry that I've been so timelagged on this - i'm right in the
middle of preparing to move back to Europe for a while - to this end
i'm going to be offline and travelling for most of the next 2 days :/
I hope this helps, and if you think waiting til Friday isn't a
terrible idea Benjamin, we can have another big push and 2nd pass then -
I'll try to look in on Thursday afternoon/evening - and we'll actually
be in the same timezone for once :) 


jo

-----------------------

Dear Minister,

We are writing to convey our concerns regarding the proposed INSPIRE
directive on establishing a common framework for sharing geographic
information in Europe, and to ask the Minister for their stance on
some of the Parliament's amendments to the text. Geographic
information is an important issue as it is estimated that fully 80% of
all information collected by government has a spatial component and
geographic information is needed for environmental, census, and
transport purposes among many others. Moreover state-collected
geographic information is a public good and, as demonstrated by
several studies, open access to it is the only way to realize its full
social and commercial potential for Europe. 

However since the first draft of INSPIRE, a set of amendments have
been introduced which restrict the rights of the public to access,
view, or even know about the existence of, geographic information that
they have paid to collect. The Council's initial common position on
the Directive not only fails to promote open access but risks doing
the very opposite. 

This would be a disastrous outcome and one which runs against the very
purpose of INSPIRE. The Commission itself stated in this regard: "the
common position could have the effect of reducing rather than
increasing the availability of spatial data. ... The text of the
common position leaves too much scope for data providers to refuse to
give public access to their data and share it with other authorities."

The ENVI Committee of the Parliament voted against many of the
Council's amendments to the original wording. ENVI's Rapporteur
recommended "intellectual property rights to be deleted from the list
of exceptions that would restrict access to environmental
information... access free of charge, must be guaranteed not only for
search services but also for view services." 

We urge you to support amendments that promote open access and the
sharing of geographic information. At Second Reading, the European
Parliament supported Amendment 21 - to restore the right of the public
to view, free of cost, the holdings of geographic information
collected by the state. The Parliament also supported Amendment 27 -
deleting the mention of "intellectual property rights" held by state
agencies that collect geographic data from the Council's common
position. We request a response from the Minister to the following
questions: 

 * Does the Minister support the Parliament's Amendment 21? If not, is
   it possible to outline the reasons why not?
 * Does the Minister support the Parliament's Amendment 27? If not, is
   it possible to outline the reasons why not? 
 
More than 6000 European citizens who work with geographic information
have signed a petition to amend or reject INSPIRE, viewable at
http://petition.publicgeodata.org/
We suggest that rejection be considered should it prove impossible to
remove the obstacles to open access that currently exist in the text.
Such an outcome would be better than the adoption of a flawed
directive and, should the Commission reintroduce the proposal, would
allow for the development of a new draft which adequately  considered
the broader implications for access and reuse of spatial and
environmental data, and included more of the local government,
academic, business and civil society interests who will be deeply
affected by INSPIRE's terms.