hello@openfuture.eu
On 5 January, we submitted our response to the review of the Digital Decade Policy Programme. In our submission, we argue that foregrounding digital commons is a key mechanism to achieving the EU’s digital sovereignty and competitiveness goals. We propose that digital transformation should prioritize open source software, interoperability, and sovereign technologies—rather than defaulting to proprietary solutions that create vendor lock-in.
Our recommendations focus on three key areas: 1) the digitalization of government and public services, where public services should adopt open source and interoperable solutions guided by the principle of “public money, public code,” with strategic public procurement serving as a critical lever to shape markets and reduce dependency on proprietary ecosystems; 2) the digital transformation of business, where support for digital adoption should be conditional on contributions to technological sovereignty, sustainability, and democratic values—rather than treating technology diffusion as an end in itself; and 3) skills, where training and capacity-building should emphasize transferable skills in open technologies rather than reinforcing dependence on proprietary vendors.
