Sample letter to European Commission on Open Standards

Dear Commissioner (Tajani, Almunia, Barnier or Kroes):

As public interest citizen organizations (or individual) we are writing to you to express our concern over the content of the EU Digital Agenda that shall be presented in late April. According to information we have received the commitment of the EU to ICT open standards and interoperability will possibly not be strengthened in the final text of the EU Digital Agenda.

We support the promotion of open standards in the policies, new legislation and funding of the EU in order to provide citizens with a choice and to support innovation in the IT field. We are specially concerned that policies in favour of open standards and interoperability are followed in the areas of innovation, anti-trust and public procurement policies.

Concretely we support the that these draft objectives of the Digital Agenda should be an integral part of the adopted EU Digital agenda:

“Reform the governance system for ICT standards in Europe to recognise ICT fora and consortia standards;

Issue a Recommendation to streamline the use of open standards in public services and public procurement;

Update the European Interoperability Framework to promote an open approach to technology and interoperability;

Examine the feasibility of measures to promote interoperability with applications based on de facto standards;

Promote the development of open standards for new applications and services by supporting industry-led platforms through EU-funded programmes.”

Thank you very much,