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Greece

Open provision of Geo-data (GR0053)

Overview

At-a-Glance

Action Plan: Greece National Action Plan 2016-2018

Action Plan Cycle: 2016

Status: Inactive

Institutions

Lead Institution: Ministry of Environment and Energy, ΕΘΕΓ, ΕΚΧΑ ΑΕ

Support Institution(s): Rest of the Ministries and public sector entities

Policy Areas

E-Government, Land & Spatial Planning, Open Data, Records Management

IRM Review

IRM Report: Greece End-of-Term Report 2016-2018

Starred: No

Early Results: Did Not Change

Design i

Verifiable: No

Relevant to OGP Values: Access to Information Technology

Potential Impact:

Implementation i

Completion:

Description

Context The Ministry of Environment and Energy, following Law 3882/2010 is responsible to centrally coordinate all involved bodies of the Greek Public Administration that manage/produce/provide geospatial data, so as those data to be provided publicly and in open format to all interested parties. To this end, the Ministry of Environment and Energy will proceed to the adjustment – amendment of the current legislation and undertake all necessary actions to gradually implement and complete this policy. The provided geospatial data will be publicized through the website of the National Geospatial Information Infrastructure by the Ministry, the supervised entities as well as other public sector entities, following technical standards and procedures to be established. Also the data will be posted on the Central Governmental registry data.gov.gr. Under the framework of the above-mentioned action, geospatial data of the Ministry are available at http://maps.ypeka.gr, covering a wide range of thematic pillars OGP Values Access to Information/ Geo-data Implementing bodies Ministry of Environment and Energy, ΕΘΕΓ, ΕΚΧΑ ΑΕ, - cooperation with the rest of the Ministries and public sector entities. Objective To provide open geospatial data of the Public Administration in open formats to all interested parties, according to Directive 2007/2/EC. Then, the National Interoperability Framework geo-information and Services will be established.

IRM End of Term Status Summary

Commitment 23: Geo-Data

Commitment 23: Open provision of Geo-data

The Ministry of Environment and Energy, following Law 3882/2010 is responsible to centrally coordinate all involved bodies of the Greek Public Administration that manage/produce/provide geospatial data, so as those data to be provided publicly and in open format to all interested parties. To this end, the Ministry of Environment and Energy will proceed to the adjustment–amendment of the current legislation and undertake all necessary actions to gradually implement and complete this policy. The provided geospatial data will be publicized through the website of the National Geospatial Information

Infrastructure by the Ministry, the supervised entities as well as other public sector entities, following technical standards and procedures to be established. Also, the data will be posted on the Central Governmental registry data.gov.gr. Under the framework of the above-mentioned action, geospatial data of the Ministry are available at http://maps.ypeka.gr, covering a wide range of thematic pillars.

Responsible institution: Ministry of Environment and Energy

Supporting institution(s): None

Start date: July 2016 End date: November 2016

Editorial Note: The action plan text has been abridged by the IRM. For the full version, please see https://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/GREEK_NAP3-OGP-ENG_0.pdf

Commitment Aim:

This commitment aimed to enhance the publishing of open geo-data in Greece. Prior to this commitment Greece had to comply with the EU directive INSPIRE that mandates the publishing of geo-data and environmental information.[Note 200: National Infrastructure for Geodata Information, (in Greek), http://www.inspire.okxe.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54&Itemid=68%5D The official EU monitoring service indicated that “the closing of the initial National Contact Point, the Hellenic Mapping and Cadastral Organization, in 2013 caused significant delays in the implementation of the Directive”.[Note 201: Eionet, Central Data Repository (in Greek), http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/gr/eu/inspire/monitoring/envwbbkzq/Notes_on_Monitoring_of_year_2016.docx/manage_document%5D According to the commitment text the Ministry of Environment would coordinate with all the public agencies that have geospatial information to help them release it in open formats. It included activities to release additional open geo-datasets as well as inserting changes in the legal framework of Law 3882. However, the original commitment text was vaguely worded and thus it remained unclear which specific geospatial datasets and legal amendments to expect.

Status

Midterm: Limited

This commitment was carried over from the previous action plan. The previous commitment focused on adding specific datasets to the national geospatial information infrastructure as a way to improve compliance with the requirements of Law 3882/2010 that implemented the EU INSPIRE Directive - specifically to publish the relevant datasets on the Greek geospatial open data site.[Note 202: Wayback machine archived version of geodata.gov.gr, https://goo.gl/KnYcD7%5D This commitment had limited implementation at the midterm evaluation point. The coordination of all public agencies by the Ministry of Environment to release geospatial information in open formats proved an unrealistic goal. According to officials from the Ministry of Environment,[Note 203: Vassilis Gekas, Ministry of Environment, telephone interview with IRM researchers, September 2018.] public agencies had insufficient capacity to keep up with the policy area of releasing geospatial data that has complex operational aspects, legal implications and requires significant technical capabilities.  

End of term: Limited

The release of new geospatial datasets in open formats has not progressed.[Note 204: Ibid.] The head of the Department of Geospatial Information in the Ministry of Environment reports that a joint effort with the Ministry of Digital Policy to coordinate public agencies on interoperability issues and on releasing datasets in a new platform with uniform open formats is under way.[Note 205: Ibid.] In trying to improve the legal framework[Note 206: The legal framework that governs Geospatial Information in Greece (in Greek), http://www.inspire.okxe.gr/images/_3882_2010____.pdf%5D the Ministry of Environment has started drafting a ministerial decision to require public agencies to release their geospatial datasets on the website for urban planning[Note 207: Vassilis Gekas, Ministry of Environment, telephone interview with IRM researchers, September 2018.] (e-poleodomia.gr).  

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Did Not Change

Prior to this commitment the only available platform for citizens to access geospatial information in open formats was geodata.gov.gr, a civil society initiative. This commitment tried to create a common policy for all public agencies and coordinate its implementation to streamline the release of open geospatial data and improve the quality. The Ministry has not fulfilled the commitment to coordinate the policy for releasing open geo-data. Therefore, there have been no changes in access to information.

Carried Forward?

As a new action plan has not yet been released, it remains unclear whether this commitment will be included. To increase the quantity and quality of openly available geospatial information across public sector agencies annually, the Ministry of Environment, in cooperation with the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, could put forward a plan with concrete and measurable actions. Such a plan could focus on prioritizing specific datasets in accordance with urgent and well defined social or economic problems, such as the issue of civil protection from forest fires that came up in July 2018.[Note 208: EU Open Data Portal, “Forest Fires in Attika, Greece (2018-07-24)”, http://data.europa.eu/euodp/en/data/dataset/fce1a312-e90b-448e-9188-e962f6ac24a8%5D Also, the government could benefit by cooperating with civil society to advance open geo-data initiatives like the Hellenic Data Service and the geodata.gov.gr website. CSOs such as the Athena Research Center, Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), and Open Knowledge Greece could be part of a common effort to co-create a possible future commitment to address this issue.[Note 209: Despina Mitropoulou, General Director of Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), telephone interview with IRM researcher, 21 October 2018.

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Greece's Commitments

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  2. Open Rural Development Data

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  3. Open Immigration Data

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  4. Open National Defense Data

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  5. Open Ministry of Interior Data

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  6. Open Administrative Reconstruction Data

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  7. Open Economic Data

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  8. Open Local Government Data

    GR0072, 2019, E-Government

  9. Open Justice Data

    GR0073, 2019, E-Government

  10. Open Environmental Data

    GR0074, 2019, E-Government

  11. Open Culture and Sports Data

    GR0075, 2019, E-Government

  12. Framework law on Open & Participative Governance

    GR0031, 2016, Capacity Building

  13. Participation in the Assessment of the Public Sector

    GR0032, 2016, Capacity Building

  14. Publicity of Organisational Charts & Entities of the Public Sector

    GR0033, 2016, E-Government

  15. Accountability and Settlement of Disputes between the citizens and the Public Sector

    GR0034, 2016, Legislation & Regulation

  16. Guide and Standardization for the provision of Services & for Procedures per Service/entity

    GR0035, 2016, Capacity Building

  17. Improvement of the open deliberation procedure

    GR0036, 2016, Capacity Building

  18. National Register of Line Managers of the Public Administration (Register)

    GR0037, 2016, Capacity Building

  19. Implementation of the assessment of employees and services and control methods

    GR0038, 2016, Capacity Building

  20. Implementation of a System for the Selection of Managers

    GR0039, 2016, Capacity Building

  21. Digital Repository for Pubic Administration Studies

    GR0040, 2016, Capacity Building

  22. Provision of Open Cultural Data

    GR0041, 2016, E-Government

  23. Geospatial Maritime Data

    GR0042, 2016, E-Government

  24. Ship/Company and Seafarer Registers

    GR0043, 2016, E-Government

  25. Marine and Maritime Activity

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  26. Starred commitment Public Property Open Data

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  27. KPI’s for the implementation of Public and EU Financed Projects

    GR0046, 2016, E-Government

  28. Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams

    GR0047, 2016, E-Government

  29. Protocol Digitization

    GR0048, 2016, E-Government

  30. Informative Actions on open data for young people in Secondary and higher Education

    GR0049, 2016, Education

  31. Open Education

    GR0050, 2016, Capacity Building

  32. Provision of open data for Justice

    GR0051, 2016, E-Government

  33. Enhanced statistical data of justice open to the public

    GR0052, 2016, E-Government

  34. Open provision of Geo-data

    GR0053, 2016, E-Government

  35. Open-Participatory Budget

    GR0054, 2016, Fiscal Transparency

  36. Regional Council Platform (Open Regional Council)

    GR0055, 2016, E-Government

  37. Open - Participatory Budget

    GR0056, 2016, E-Government

  38. Capture and Evaluation Platform for Regional Technical Projects

    GR0057, 2016, E-Government

  39. City Dashboard

    GR0058, 2016, E-Government

  40. Online Consultation Platform

    GR0059, 2016, E-Government

  41. Open Data Index for cities and local administrations

    GR0060, 2016, E-Government

  42. Linked, Open and Participatory Budgets

    GR0061, 2016, E-Government

  43. School of data for public servants

    GR0062, 2016, Capacity Building

  44. The collaborative wikification of public services procedures

    GR0063, 2016, Capacity Building

  45. Strengthening openness and accessibility of the Parliament

    GR0064, 2016, Capacity Building

  46. Institutional and technological upgrading of Transparency Program

    GR0012, 2014, E-Government

  47. Public participation in decision making

    GR0013, 2014, Capacity Building

  48. Integration of PSI Directive on the re-use of public sector information

    GR0014, 2014, E-Government

  49. Regulatory amendments for the management and provision of open data

    GR0015, 2014, Capacity Building

  50. Implementation of platform for central distribution of public open data

    GR0016, 2014, E-Government

  51. Provision of open geospatial data

    GR0017, 2014, E-Government

  52. Provision of open cultural data

    GR0018, 2014, Legislation & Regulation

  53. Provision of open data for offshore companies

    GR0019, 2014, E-Government

  54. Open provision of Public Sector critical data sets

    GR0020, 2014, E-Government

  55. Open invitations for filling posts in the public sector

    GR0021, 2014, E-Government

  56. Public administration organizational chart publication

    GR0022, 2014, Capacity Building

  57. Coordination and monitoring of Open Government policy

    GR0023, 2014, Audits and Controls

  58. Reorganization of inspectorate bodies and strategic alliance development against corruption

    GR0024, 2014, Anti-Corruption Institutions

  59. Tracking changes on bills (from submission to voting by Plenum)

    GR0025, 2014, E-Government

  60. Usability and functionality improvements of the ‘Parliamentary Transparency’ section of the Hellenic Parliament website

    GR0026, 2014, E-Government

  61. Improvement of the Hellenic Parliament Website and implementation of new standards-technologies

    GR0027, 2014, E-Government

  62. Provision of historical parliamentary documents to the public

    GR0028, 2014, E-Government

  63. Enhancement of Social Media Policy in the Hellenic Parliament

    GR0029, 2014, E-Government

  64. On line provision of Exhibitions

    GR0030, 2014, Capacity Building

  65. Increase number of legislative acts going through online deliberation

    GR0001, 2012, Legislation & Regulation

  66. Capitalize on citizen comments and suggestions

    GR0002, 2012, Public Participation

  67. Operate central e-procurement information system

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  68. Operate central ERP information system

    GR0004, 2012, E-Government

  69. Operate central HRMS information system

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  71. Resolve legal issues regarding state geo-data

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  72. Offer additional taxation data

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  73. Augment functionality of the Transparency Program

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  74. Publicise Public Sector procurement information

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  75. Enable open, transparent and safeguarded document circulation

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