Merge pull request 'news-20230524-IEA' (#3462 ) from news-20230524-IEA into master

Reviewed-on: #3462
Update 'news/2023/news-20230524-01.en.xhtml'
2023-05-24 16:02:15 +00:00 · 2023-05-24 13:14:24 +00:00 · 2023-05-24 15:02:40 +02:00
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 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <html newsdate="2023-05-24">
 <version>1</version>
 <head>
  <title>Interoperable Europe Act: Committee of the Regions fails to substantially promote Free Software</title>
 </head>
 <body>
 <h1>Interoperable Europe Act: Committee of the Regions fails to substantially promote Free Software</h1>
 <p>
 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.
 </p>
 <figure>
     <img src="https://pics.fsfe.org/uploads/medium/78/94/d9f6548eef03da7fac8ba80496bc.png" 
       alt="EU flag with a gavel in the background and the word fail in the foreground"/>
       </figure>
 <p>
 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.
 </p>
 <p>
 </p>
 <blockquote>
 <em> ““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.
 </em>
 </blockquote>
 <p></p>
 <p>
 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 <a href="https://publiccode.eu/">'Public Money? Public 
 Code!' initiative</a> 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 <italic>“Free Software first” </italic> 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. <a href="/news/2023/news-20230323-02.html">Further read</a>. 
 </p>
 </body>
 <tags>
 	 <tag key="front-page"/>
 	 <tag key="european-parliament">European Parliament</tag>
 	 <tag key="policy">European Public Policy</tag>
 	 <tag key="european-union">European Union</tag>
 	</tags>
 <discussion href="https://community.fsfe.org/t/1037"/>  
 <image url="https://pics.fsfe.org/uploads/original/78/94/d9f6548eef03da7fac8ba80496bc.png"
 alt="EU flag with a gavel in the background and the word fail in the foreground"/>
 </html>
Author	SHA1	Message	Date
anaghz	b39322655b	Merge pull request 'news-20230524-IEA' (#3462 ) from news-20230524-IEA into master All checks were successful continuous-integration/drone/push Build is passing Details Reviewed-on: #3462	2023-05-24 16:02:15 +00:00
anaghz	ceb3312274	Update 'news/2023/news-20230524-01.en.xhtml' All checks were successful continuous-integration/drone/pr Build is passing Details	2023-05-24 13:14:24 +00:00
Ana Galan	d003b0cae1	news on IEA	2023-05-24 15:02:40 +02:00