After introducing Open Data and advertising for its value by pointing out several areas of benefit such as economic development or transparency, the article takes a look at practices in the EU Neighbourhoods to the East and South “beyond the EU 28+ borders”. The report provides a high-level assessment of the state of play of Open Data in these EU Neighbourhoods and showcases challenges faced during implementation. It is shown that the expectations from EU Neighbourhood country officials as to the benefits of Open Data are very high. The authors are confident on the fulfilment of those, if Open Data is grounded in a solid foundation. Therefore, they suggest creating an enabling framework with concentrated efforts from the European Union and the Neighbourhood Countries for Open Data.
