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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>