= Interoperable Europe Act: Committee of the Regions fails to substantially promote Free Software =

[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230524-01.fi.html ]

The Committee of the Regions approved its opinion on the Interoperable Europe Act. The EU representative body has failed to recognise the importance that Free Software has for interoperability and thus for digitalisation and innovation. This underlines the relevance of Free Software Community's participation in the planned Interoperable Board.

With the EU's objective of establishing a legal framework on interoperability through the Interoperable Europe Act, today the Committee of the Regions has adopted its opinion in plenary. While the opinion has feebly mentioned the role of Free Software in achieving cross-border interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in in its policy recommendations, the Committee of the Regions has failed in substantially improving the original text and bringing up more solid and necessary measures. It lacks to introduce a “Free Software first” approach and the involvement of stakeholders in the Interoperable Europe Board, an intended body that shall decide on upcoming steps arising from this legislation.

/““It is incomprehensible that the institution who has the responsibility to bring up the demands of thousands of local and regional administrations fails in featuring the importance of Free Software for interoperability. Hence, this decision only reaffirms the importance of the involvement of stakeholder, who have actual competence, in this decision making processes . We, therefore, urge the European Parliament to include the Free Software community in the Interoperable Europe Board to guarantee sustainability and innovation in digitalisation. Furthermore a 'Free Software first' approach still needs to be introduced", explains Lina Ceballos, FSFE Policy Project Manager./

The role that Free Software plays in the digitalisation of local and regional administrations has shown to be of the great importance, especially during the corona pandemic. Among other, it strengthens digital sovereignty allowing administrations to have control over the software they are using, while it enables that public funds are spent in the most efficient way. For these reasons, over the last years the FSFE has been demanding with its 'Public Money? Public Code!' initiative [1] that publicly financed software should be made publicly available under a Free Software licence. It is now up to the European Parliament to ensure interoperability is introduced by a “Free Software first” approach while including the Free Software community on the path to digitalise European public administrations. First Amendments in this direction have been introduced already, however, the position has to be further improved. Further read [2].

1: https://publiccode.eu/ 2: https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230323-02.fi.html

== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==

Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives; and it is important that this technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.

The FSFE helps individuals and organisations understand how Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency and self-determination. We enhance users' rights by abolishing barriers to Free Software adoption, encourage people to use and develop Free Software, and provide resources to enable everyone to further promote Free Software in Europe.

https://fsfe.org