Who we are

The portal is a central point of access to European open data from international, European Union, national, regional, local and geodata portals. It consolidates the former EU Open Data Portal and the European Data Portal.

The portal is intended to:

1. give access and foster the reuse of European open data among citizens, business and organisations;

2. promote and support the release of more and better-quality metadata and data by the EU's institutions, agencies and other bodies, and European countries;

3. educate citizens and organisations about the opportunities that arise from the availability of open data.

The two former portals EU Open Data Portal and European Data Portal, launched respectively in 2012 and 2015, were originally established on the basis of Directive 2003/98/EC to promote accessibility to and the reuse of public sector information. The successor directives Directive 2013/37/EU and Directive (EU) 2019/1024 confirmed and extended its action. It invites all the EU Member States to publish their public data resources, such as open datasets, and to make them accessible to the public whenever possible.

Currently in its third iteration, the portal merges the activities of the European Data Portal (which focused exclusively on EU Member States and other European countries) and of the EU Open Data Portal (which served data from the EU institutions, agencies, and bodies) into one.

It is funded by the EU and managed by the Publications Office of the European Union. The Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission is responsible for the implementation of EU open data policy, in collaboration with the project's management.

Information

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Our mission, vision and values

The mission, vision and values of data.europa.eu are part of those from the Publications Office of the European Union (OP) with respect to open data.

OP's mission. The Publications Office of the European Union is the official provider of publishing services to all EU institutions, bodies, and agencies. As such, it is a central point of access to EU law, publications, open data, research results, procurement notices and other official information. Its mission is to support EU policies and ensure that this broad range of information is available to the public as accessible and reusable data to facilitate transparency, economic activity, and the diffusion of knowledge.

OP's vision. A well-informed EU, empowered by timely and effective access to trustworthy information and knowledge and benefiting from all the opportunities this brings to society and the economy.

OP's values.

1. Transparency -- we facilitate transparency throughout the policy cycle of the EU institutions to enhance evidence-based decision-making, accountability, civic participation, and democracy.

2. Trustworthiness -- we strive to ensure that the content we provide is accurate and reliable so that citizens trust the EU as a provider of information.

3. Accessibility -- we believe access to information is a human right that all citizens should enjoy regardless of language, culture, disability, social status, location, technology, or the way they understand information.

4. Service orientation -- we are committed to continuously improving our services to both our institutional stakeholders and EU citizens because we want to contribute to the European project in the best possible way.

Better access, enhanced transparency and use

The portal is aimed at improving the accessibility to open data and promoting its use by public administrations, research centres, citizens, businesses, and any other interested organisation. It enhances the transparency of European administrations and educates about the opportunities arising from open data.

Translated metadata catalogue

The portal is a metadata catalogue. To foster the comparability of data published across borders, it presents metadata references in a familiar format (Data Catalogue Vocabulary (DCAT) application profile for data portals in Europe), using Resource Description Framework (RDF) technology. It provides translations of metadata descriptions in all 24 official EU languages using machine-translation technologies (eTranslation).

In some situations, metadata machine-based translation might not be as efficient as human translation.

From raw data to services

The metadata catalogue of datasets can be explored through a search engine (data tab), through a map for geospatial data or through a SPARQL endpoint and API endpoint.

The 'data providers' (EU institutions, agencies and EU bodies, Member States, and other European countries) are autonomous in publishing their metadata (which gives you access to their data) in data.europa.eu. The portal also publishes datasets of other European countries and organisations beyond the EU. The portal is updated when new datasets and content are available. 

In addition to the vast collection of public datasets, most of them published in open formats, we offer additional contents and related services:

• training materials on open data in the data.europa academy;

• studies such as Open Data Maturity or The Economic Impact of Open Data;

• news and data stories;

• a metadata quality dashboard assessing metadata quality against various findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) indicators;

• our social media channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook);

• a list of events with the most relevant events taking place;

• a quarterly Newsletter.

Open data in the European Commission

Several policy and legal developments on EU open data have taken place since 2003.

• 2003 -- Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of the public sector information (PSI) directive.

• 2011 -- Commission Decision (2011/833/EU) on the reuse of Commission documents, established the basis for the former EU Open Data Portal, operated by the Publications Office of the EU (2012--2021).

• 2012 -- launch of the EU Open Data Portal, central point of access to open data from EU institutions, agencies, and bodies.

• 2013 -- Directive 2013/37/EU amending Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information.

• 2015 -- launch of the European Data Portal publishing data from national, regional, and local open data portals.

• 2019 -- Directive 2019/1024 on open data and the re-use of public sector information recasts Directives 2003/98/EC (PSI directive) and 2013/37/EU setting up a legal framework of minimum requirements for Member States regarding the accessibility of public data resources. 

• 2020 -- Communication on a European strategy for data (COM/2020/66) aiming at creating a single market for data to ensure Europe's global competitiveness.

• 2021 -- The European Data Portal (data from the EU Member States and other European countries) and the EU Open Data Portal (data from the EU institutions, agencies, and bodies) were consolidated into the data.europa.eu portal.

European data strategy

The European data strategy fosters a single market for data for the benefit of businesses, researchers, and public administrations. The portal will continue to play a crucial role in supporting data accessibility and interoperability, facilitating its use and value creation.

European open data space

The European open data space is an essential element of the single market for data -- an EU-wide interoperable data space that will enable the development of new products and services based on public data, and industrial and scientific applications. It focuses on the implementation of EU open data and reuse policies under the legal acts adopted by the EU institutions. In 2021 the Publications Office of the EU was working on all four European open data space building blocks and their objectives:

• providing a comprehensive catalogue of open data and citizen-centric reuse services;

• improving the interlinking and interoperability of open data with other sources of public-sector information, such as legislation, publications, and digital content;

• fostering the use of data from EU content through the organisation of EU Datathon competitions and data visualisation events;

• contributing to the implementation of data governance and policies across the EU institutions.