ZAGREB, 6 April 2022 - Croatia on Wednesday received two reasoned opinions as part of the April package of EU law infringements, which the European Commission publishes once a month.

Together with Spain and Luxembourg, Croatia has been given a reasoned opinion for failing to ensure complete transposition into national legislation of the Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings.

The directive introduces new elements to strengthen the existing framework, such as minimum requirements regarding the energy properties of new buildings, electromobility and charging stations, as well as new rules on heating and air conditioning system inspections.

The directive is aimed at modernising the construction sector in terms of technological improvements, and increasing the low rates of reconstruction of buildings to improve the energy efficiency of the EU housing stock.

The revised provisions should have been transposed into national legislation by 10 March 2020. In May 2020 all three member states received a formal warning over failure to transpose the directive.

After reviewing national measures, the EC considers that the transposition of the directive into national law in Croatia, Spain and Luxembourg has not been completed and is now sending them a reasoned opinion.

The countries have two months to respond and if the EC does not receive a satisfactory response, it can decide to refer their cases to the Court of the EU.

The second reasoned opinion, which Croatia received along with eight other member states, refers to the Open Data Directive.

The EC wants the nine member states to provide information on how EU rules on open data and the re-use of public sector information from the Open Data Directive have been transposed into national law.

The deadline for this expired on 17 July 2021 and the member states concerned have not stated all national measures despite formal warnings sent on 30 September 2021.

The directive, adopted on 20 June 2019, aims to use the advantages of using open data and help enable the re-use of the public sector's huge and valuable base of data resources.

This will reduce obstacles to the entry of small and medium companies into the market because costs of data re-use will be reduced, more data will be made available and new business opportunities will be created owing to the exchange of data through the Application Programming Interface.

The directive encourages the development of innovative solutions such as mobility applications, it increases transparency by enabling access to publicly funded research data and supports new technologies, including artificial intelligence. If it does not receive a satisfactory response in two months' time, the EC may decide to refer the case to the EU Court.

The EC, as the guardian of the Treaties, launches EU law infringement procedures based on its own investigations or acting on citizens', companies' or other stakeholders' complaints.

Most of the cases are resolved before they are referred to the Court of the EU.

For more, check out our dedicated politics section.

ZAGREB, 4 March (2022) - The GONG nongovernmental organisation on Friday opened a three-day online conference "Open data against infodemic" on the occasion of the 9th Open Data Day, to promote the importance of publicly available, open data which the NGO describes as a valuable social resource.

GONG executive director Oriana Ivković Novokmet said the conference would include three panel discussions, one of which would focus on the coronavirus infection and disinformation during the pandemic.

Experts from the universities of Rijeka, Osijek and Dubrovnik will be discussing how false coronavirus information is spread and who the most influential disinformers are.

The second panel, entitled "Data only for the rich," deals with the availability of spatial data, environmental data and data on public companies.

Ivković Novokmet said the latest amendments to the Right to Access Information Act, seeking to align the law with the EU Open Data Directive, was a step backward in terms of access to information standards because data on public spending would require the proportionality and public interest tests in a whole set of cases. GONG also considers as disputable the fact that public companies that make their income on the market, like FINA or Zagreb Holding, would be able to charge for the use of their data.

The third panel, entitled "Who is paying you," deals with the financing of civil sector organisations, Ivković Novokmet said, recalling a "defamation campaign" against civil society organisations during the 2021 local elections.

The event will also include workshops, as well as a discussion on Croatian, Hungarian and Russian officials' real estate in Croatia and the financing of media by the state and local budgets.

Lana Podgoršek of the Code for Croatia civic hackers' group said the conference would provide an opportunity for citizens to ask about anything regarding open data, public procurement transparency, civic hacking and the group's community projects.

Code for Croatia is an initiative that brings together activists and programmers and everyone else interested in open data and socially useful community projects.

Podgoršek also presented the group's new project, called "Fix it," a portal where citizens can report any damage to public infrastructure.

The "Open data against infodemic" conference can be followed on GONG and Code for Croatia's YouTube channels and on GONG's Facebook account.

For more, check out our politics section.