APELL (Association Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre) is an European association that aims to bring together European national associations that, like ESOP, represent Open Source companies. It aims to represent these associations and their members in the European institutions and contribute to the construction of European policies and in the member states in favor of Open Source, to contribute to the development of the industry and to a European digital agenda based on Open Source

ESOP joins to the three founding members from Germany (OSBA), France (CNLL) and Finland (COSS), being the first association to do so.

With APELL, ESOP aims to be able to contribute to the Open Source ecosystem at the European level, namely at the level of policies. According to ESOP's President, Eduardo Taborda:

“As national legislation is increasingly defined upstream, originating from European regulations and directives, this is a way for ESOP to be able to have a more active voice in these processes. It is an opportunity to contribute to an Europe with more Open Source and with all the advantages that this brings ”.

The European Union, through the European Commission and the European Council itself, has show an increasing interest in Open Source technologies, with emphasis on the recently approved European Commission's Open Source Strategy. ESOP expects these efforts to continue to grow and is ready to contribute to the extension of measures that support and promote Open Source in Europe and Portugal, in defense of European digital sovereignty.

“It is crucial for Open Source SMEs to have a voice in the political conversation. Other than that, looking at the current Portuguese Council Presidency, the engagement of ESOP might represent an opportunity to bring Portugal closer to OSS-related issues, through the perspective of its national businesses”, afirmou Eduardo Taborda, Presidente da ESOP.

Co-founder Timo Väliharju, from the Finnish Association COSS, one of the founders of APELL, welcomed ESOP:

“SMEs should be directly involved in the discussions related to both the upcoming Data Act and the revision of the European Interoperability Framework, to name a few.”