Common European Data Spaces

Building the single market for data

Data is reshaping the way we produce, consume and live. From real-time navigation to improved personalised medicine, precision farming or reducing CO₂ emissions, data is a key ingredient for innovative products and services.

To harness the value of data for the benefit of the European economy and society, the European strategy for data of February 2020 set out the path to the creation of Common European Data Spaces in a number of strategic fields: health, agriculture, manufacturing, energy, mobility, financial, public administration, skills, the European Open Science Cloud. The green deal data space also stresses meeting the Green Deal’s objectives as a key priority.

Since then, data spaces in other important areas such as media and cultural heritage have also emerged. Together, the data spaces will gradually be interconnected to form the single market for data.

Concept

Stakeholders drive the evolution of data spaces. Users within each distinct sector contribute to shaping these spaces, resulting in the emergence of unique forms and characteristics. Yet, what underpins all European data spaces is common data infrastructures and governance frameworks, which facilitates data pooling, access and sharing. In addition, the Common European Data Spaces have these key features. They:

• are open for the participation of all organisations and individuals.
• have a secure and privacy-preserving infrastructure to pool, access, share, process, and use data.
• are a clear and practical structure for accessing and using data: common European data space have fair, transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory access rules, due to well-defined and trustworthy data governance mechanisms.
• respect EU rules and values, especially personal data and consumer protection, and competition law.
• enable data holders to grant access to or to share certain personal or non-personal data.
• empower data holders to make their data available for reuse for free or against compensation.

Objectives

The Common European Data Spaces will help unleash the enormous potential of data-driven innovation. They will allow data from across the EU to be made available and exchanged in a trustworthy and secure manner. EU Businesses, public administrations, and individuals will control the data they generate. At the same time, these data holders will benefit from a safe and reliable framework to share their data for innovation purposes.

Common European Data Spaces will enhance the development of new data-driven products and services in the EU, forming the core tissue of an interconnected and competitive European data economy.

State of play

Two staff working documents have been published in response to a request from the European Council, providing an overview of the state of play of the Common European Data Spaces. The latest report on the state of play was published in January 2024.

You can also check the First staff working document on data spaces, published on February 2022.

Next steps

In 2024, stakeholders will continue to work toward the rollout of Common European Data Spaces.

The EU is funding several initiatives related to Common European Data Spaces for sector and domain-specific initiatives, notably the Data Spaces Support Centre and Smart Open-source Middleware (SIMPL) under the Digital Europe programme and Horizon Europe.

In addition, the EU will focus on implementing the enabling legislative instruments. In particular, the European Data Innovation Board (EDIB) - established under the Data Governance Act - will work on guidelines. The creation of recognised data altruism organisations, data intermediaries, and the European register for protected data held by the public sector will enable the safe and secure sharing of large volumes of data.

The Commission also provides support for developing Common European Data Spaces in the form of reference architecture, building blocks, semantics, interoperability specifications and data models, accompanied by related advisory services, provided by the Data Spaces Support Centre. 

Rollout of Common European Data Spaces

Common European Data Spaces are currently being developed across 14 sectors/domains. Additional updates (including links) will be published when they become available.