We have submitted our feedback on the European Commission’s call for evidence on the European Open Digital Ecosystems, which concluded on February 3rd.
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As digital sovereignty becomes one of the key challenges for the EU to tackle, the Commission aims to set out a strategic approach to the open source sector in the European Union, with the following objectives:
- A strategic approach to the open source sector in the EU that addresses the importance of open source as a crucial contribution to EU technological sovereignty, security, and competitiveness,
- A strategic and operational framework to strengthen the use, development, and reuse of open digital assets within the Commission, building on the results achieved under the 2020-2023 Commission Open Source Software Strategy.
The Commission’s public consultation, launched to gather feedback on developing this new strategy, has received a remarkable level of interest, with a total of 1658 responses.
You can use the following link to learn more about this initiative and review the responses submitted:
European Open Digital Ecosystems
In our feedback, we reiterated that open source technologies offer a significant opportunity for Europe’s digital future and propose following a progressive open source strategy to address digital sovereignty concerns while turning the EU into an open source hub.
From the summary section of our proposal:
- Establish European Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF).
- Implement a 1% Open Source Tax on proprietary solutions, and use the revenue to fund EU-STF.
- Distribute funds back into the EU’s open source sector in a data-driven, transparent, and reliable way.
- Gradually increase the tax rate to shift resources from proprietary to the open source side.
You can review our proposal via the link below:
A Progressive Open Source Strategy for Europe