Open data et droit de la donnée: les collectivités à l'épreuve des réglementations européennes

The European institutions have released many directives between 2003 and 2013 to promote harmonization, re-use and sharing of the public data especially on the geographical information. However, in the last 10 years the harmonization and the openness of data turned out to be a slow process requiring a huge effort from the major part of the actors at different scales. Moreover, local authorities are slower than the other administrative scales. In spite of this gap, the environmental theme seems to have been chosen for its mobilizing effect both on public authorities and citizens in Europe. The authors discuss the regulatory, technical and political difficulties the implementation of the European regulations, harmonization and openness of data can create. This article relies on an accurate survey of the local authorities in France, Portugal, Spain, and United Kingdom.