The Strasbourg Declaration, of the conference of Ministers and Commissioners in charge of Digital Transformation and Public Service, places Open Source at the forefront of Transparency and Interoperability in Public Administrations.

The European Ministers responsible for public administration, public transformation and civil service, with the support of the European Commission, met in Strasbourg on 17th March 2022, under the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, where they discussed the challenges that European public administrations face.

Of this meeting resulted the Strasbourg Declaration on the common values and challenges of European public administrations, in which the Ministers assumed their “will to accompany the cooperation initiated between the public administrations of the European Union, respecting the models and specific prerogatives of the Member States and of the European Commission on their respective administrations, on common issues and challenges in terms of public transformation and public service”. To this end, they recognized the existence of common values and challenges for public administrations in the European Union and assumed intentions, based on three areas of work aimed at developing:

1. Attractive, modern and innovative public services that are a reference;
2. Transparent and resilient public services that meet user expectations;
3. Inclusive, high-quality digital public services that respect European values.

Integrated in the third area, the intention was assumed "to promote open source software within public administrations and their sharing, by:

• o Recognising the major role played by secure open source solutions in the transformation of public administrations, which allow for the pooling of investments among multiple organisations, offer transparency and interoperability by default and guarantee control over the technologies used as well as greater technological independence;
• o Leveraging open source solutions to strengthen collaboration between public administrations, by promoting the sharing of such solutions created or used by administrations within the European Union;
• o Promoting a fair redistribution of the value created by open source solutions, especially for those who produce and share open source code.

In this way, the leaders of the digital transformation of European Public Administrations assume a further commitment to Open Source.

ESOP further welcomes this declaration in favor of Open Source Software. It hopes to see the results of these intentions reflected in the digital transformation of the public sector in Portugal, making it more open, transparent and interoperable, while also striving for a more robust European digital sovereignty.