The European Commission has released some preliminary results related to the on-line public consultation about the review of the Directive on the re-use of public sector information which took place between September and November 2010. Further to these preliminary data, the Commission is expected to deliver over the following weeks a report with the main conclusions drawn from this consultation.

The preliminary details released by the European Commission show quite a high participation of citizens, as 45% of the total 585 responses to the consultation on the PSI reuse Directive ran by the end of 2010 came from individuals. Contributions from individual citizens are followed by the opinions coming from experts and academia, which represented 21.20% of the total and as third most important contributors by public sector information (PSI) reuses, which accounted for 14.19% of the responses.

Although a detailed analysis is expected to be delivered in a Commission's report over the coming weeks, these preliminary figures indicate that the vast majority of those involved in PSI considered that there is still room for PSI reuse to realize its full potential and that further action towards opening public data resources by public authorities would be crucial for the development of new services and applications based on this information.

The stake-holders who took part in this consultation also show their concern about the asymmetries and differences provoked by divergent national rules regarding PSI reuse, and how they can hamper the development of cross-border products and services. More than 80% of the responses to the consultation considered to a greater or lesser extent, that action should be taken at Community level in order to promote the creation of cross-border services based on the reuse of public sector information.

As a general conclusion, the results show that over 60% of the participants in the consultation are in favour of PSI Directive revision, compared to just over 15% who do not see that need.

The preliminary information provided by the European Commission on the PSI consultation results includes, in addition to these selected statistics, a summary of the responses submitted to the on-line survey by citizens, companies, institutions and other groups, as well as some individual  contributions made off-line by some organizations. Besides, the Commission has published the position papers submitted by the four member states which took part in the consultation, namely Denmark, France, Belgium and The Netherlands.