In this year’s annual two-day European Data Forum conference to be held in Athens on March 19 – 20, under the auspices of the Greek EU Presidency, the different stages of the data value chain will be at the centre of discussions. Participants will try to assess the progress accomplished so far on technology and infrastructure and debate on the emerging challenges on new products and services for the Open, Linked and Big Data, as well as socio-economic issues, legal issues, government policies, regulations, commercialization and innovation. The technological advances in these fields urge the EU to meet the challenge in order to promote a European Data Community with data platforms free and available to all users.

To this end, the European Commission has already launched through its Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) initiative a series of actions, resulting in new and innovative applications. Under its Open Data Policy, legislative measures on re-use of public sector information, such as the PSI Directive (Directive 2003/98/EC), nationally applied rules as well as rules on the re-use of the Commission's own data; non-legislative measures supporting the opening up of public sector information; and Open Data Portals have been adopted.