The committee adopted the report by Frieda BREPOELS (EPP-ED, BE) amending the Council's common position under the 2nd reading of the codecision procedure. It reinstated, sometimes in modified form, a number of amendments adopted by Parliament at 1st reading which had not been taken up by the Council. It also reinstated some parts of the Commission's original proposal which had been changed in the common position. The main amendments were as follows:
- whereas the Council had proposed that intellectual property rights be included among the list of factors which could be used as reasons for limiting public access to spatial data, the committee disagreed and deleted this provision, thereby reinstating the relevant Commission text as it originally stood;
- a number of other amendments also sought to overturn the Council's attempts to limit public access or impose charges on certain services. The committee also stipulated that, where charges are made, "the total income from supplying documents shall not exceed the cost of collection, production, reproduction and dissemination";
- lastly, MEPs pointed out that, bearing in mind the constitutional distribution of powers in some Member States (e.g. federal states), coordination structures should be set up to support the contact points in the Member States to ensure that the directive can be implemented effectively.