Public Procurement Act: Europe needs control over its digital infrastructure

The process to update European procurement rules has started. With the proposal for the Public Procurement Act, it is now up to the EU’s co-legislators to address its shortcomings to ensure that Europe can control its digital infrastructure.

The European Commission has published its proposal for the Public Procurement Act, laying the groundwork for a reform of European procurement rules. Despite its broad scope – covering everything from furniture to cleaning services – this proposal explicitly recognises Free Software as a way to pursue innovation objectives.

However, the proposal does not recognise Free Software’s contribution beyond innovation objectives, including to resilience. This approach does not match the EU’s own sovereignty ambitions and does not sufficiently address vendor lock-in, limited interoperability, and a lack of control over public digital infrastructure.

The Public Procurement Act must turn Europe’s sovereignty ambitions into everyday procurement practice. The European Parliament and Council should therefore:

1. make control over software the measure of technological sovereignty, ensured through the rights to use, study, share, and improve it.
2. ensure that these rights guide all software procurement, beyond innovation projects.

It is in Europe’s interest to gain control over its digital infrastructure. In order to achieve this, public bodies need the ability to freely understand and modify the software they procure, to share it, and to choose who maintains it. These abilities are crucial for technological sovereignty as well as spending tax payers money efficiently. They matter whenever public bodies procure software, whether they are developing an innovative solution or buying an established product. Choosing a European supplier alone does not guarantee control.

The FSFE outlined its position in a statement available here (EN). More recently, Alexander Sander has spoken about his initial impressions of the proposal, next steps, and what it means for Free Software in the Software Freedom Podcast (EN).

As discussions advance in the European Parliament and Council, the FSFE will continue engaging with relevant stakeholders to ensure that the Public Procurement Act strengthens technological sovereignty through Free Software.

If you want to stay up-to-date on the latest developments, consider signing the “Public Money? Public Code!” open letter and subscribing to the FSFE newsletter. Through these channels, we will also share opportunities to contribute to this work.

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Preparing meetings, travelling to Brussels, and defending Software Freedom requires many resources. Please consider making a donation to the FSFE to enable us to continue defending Software Freedom across Europe, your support truly helps the FSFE’s work.

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European teenagers build their own tech: 6 winners of programming competition awarded

More than 85 teenagers from 21 countries took part in Youth Hacking 4 Freedom 2026, with six winners who created solutions ranging from a scientific graphing calculator to tools tackling food waste and decentralised search. Their creations show how young Europeans can build technology everyone can control.

Organised annually by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), Youth Hacking 4 Freedom (YH4F) allows European teenagers, aged 14 to 18, to bring their own ideas to life, with only one rule: the software must allow anyone to use it for any purpose, to study how it works, to share it with others and to improve it. In a world where controlling our own technology is crucial, those skills are essential for society. Beside that, YH4F gives young people the chance to tinker, have fun with programming, and connect with like-minded peers.

More than 85 teenagers from 21 countries took part, with projects that stood out for their creativity, technical skill, and variety of ideas. The 2026 winners are a graphic calculator, a decentralised search engine, a solution for reducing food waste, a project supporting local communities, a tool that lets users build and own their trackers using existing networks, and a music-learning tool – all of them respecting others rights to control technology.

We tend to look to Silicon Valley when we talk about excellency and technological innovation, but YH4F shows us that here in Europe, there are young people capable of creating extraordinary things. You can see what they accomplished at this young age and with little resources, so I am confident there are many more young people here in Europe who could be able to build technology that we, as society, can fully control”, says Matthias Kirschner, president of the FSFE.

2026 Winners

For this edition, more than 85 participants from 21 countries participated. The six wining projects are:

• Ultimate Hacker Awardstrong>(awarded with €4,096 cash prize) Juan Ramón (Spain) Juan Ramón won the Ultimate Hacker Award with NumOS, a Free Software firmware and operating system for a Free Software scientific graphing calculator.

• Elite Hacker Award(awarded with €2,048 cash prize) Simon (Germany) Simon received the Elite Hacker Award for FindMyWeb, a project that enables users to build and own their own trackers using existing networks, without relying on proprietary, vendor-specific devices.

• Awesome Hacker Award (awarded with€1,024 cash prize) Konstantinos (Greece) Konstantinos won the Awesome Hacker Award with SmartFoodSave, an LLM-assisted platform designed to reduce food waste in school meal operations. The project combines data collection, machine-learning predictions, semantic meal normalisation, nutrition-aware menu planning, and donation-point discovery in a single full-stack system.

• Best Arts Project (awarded with €1,024 cash prize) Marius (Germany) Marius won the Best Arts Project award with Pianove , a Free Software piano-learning application that works entirely offline, without an account or subscription. Users can practice pieces from MusicXML files using a MIDI keyboard. The application is built in Python using Pygame.

• Best Community Support Project (awarded with €1,024 cash prize) Tommaso (Italy) Tommaso received the Best Community Support Project award for Needy, a secure, geolocated, self-hostable platform that connects people who need help with volunteers willing to offer their time. Users can request support with tasks such as grocery shopping, companionship, and small repairs, while volunteers can earn "Reputation Hours" in return.

• Best Teamwork Project (awarded with €1,024 cash prize) Stella, David, Florian, and Mattis (Germany) The Best Teamwork Project award went to RastiSearch, a federated search engine designed to operate independently of major technology companies' indexes. The project emphasises decentralisation, integration with Tor, accessible self-hosting, and tools that make it easier for users to build their own web crawlers.

"Each of these projects began with a participant who saw something they wanted, or found frustrating, and decided to build it themselves. Along the way, they learned new skills and had fun programming. The result is Free Software that solves a real problem and that others can use, study, share, and modify. That is what Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is about: young people learning by building the tools they need and sharing them with a community that helps them grow. We are deeply grateful to our sponsors, whose support makes this competition possible. Without them, we could not spark curiosity about Free Software in the next generation”, explains Bonnie Mehring, FSFE and YH4F Project Manager.

Empowering Europe’s next generation of developers

The Youth Hacking 4 Freedom competition has just concluded its fifth edition attracting young people passionate about programming. United by an interest in tinkering with technology, these participants represent a generation that understands the importance of creating, modifying, using, and sharing the software they depend on. By empowering young developers to contribute to software freedom, YH4F fosters a culture of openness, transparency, and digital independence.

This initiative is made possible through the generous financial support of our donor, Reinhard Wiesemann, and the award-sponsorship of our platinum sponsor Proxmox, our silver sponsors Collabora, Nextcloud, SUSE Open Source Network and our bronze sponsor KIX.

The registration for the YH4F 2027 edition is already open to any young European between 14 and 18 years old. The programming period is from 01.01.2027 to 30.06.2027. Details for the next edition can be found under yh4f.org.

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SFP#57: Policy and EU: Why everyone should care about procurement!

It is Podcast Friday! For our regular episode of the Software Freedom Podcast, Bonnie sat down with Alexander Sander, FSFE's policy consultant to talk about procurement as its rules for the public sector is currently under revision within the European Parliament. The FSFE is pushing for a Free Software-first approach.

In our 57th episode, Bonnie and Alex have a closer look at the currently discussed Public Procurement Act, a key topic because it determines how public money is spent, who benefits from that spending, and whether citizens receive the services they need. This act does not focus only on software, but on all the rules governing procurement. It covers everything acquired for the public sector, from chairs and security scanners to software and hardware. Alex and Bonnie untangle all the details and discuss what the act currently provides for a Free Software-first approach and what lies ahead for the FSFE to ensure that Free Software is part of the upcoming Procurement Act.

Take a break and join us to learn more about how procurement is going to change within the EU and how the FSFE is supporting Free Software!

The policy work of the FSFE is an important part of building a future where people can control the technology they use. You can support our work by donating today!

Show notes

• Support our work for Free Software
• Stay up-to-date and join our Newsletter
• Revision of EU rules on public procurement"
• "Public Money? Public Code!"
• European Parliament: Public Procurement Act
• Proposal for a Regulation on the Public Procurement Act (PDF)
• EU Transparency Register: Consultation Feedback from the FSFE
• European Commission: Public procurement directives consultation
• Public procurement

We are happy to receive your feedback on the Software Freedom Podcast and especially on the transcript of the episode. Please, email us to: podcast@fsfe.org. If you liked this episode and want to support our continuous work for software freedom, please help us with a donation.

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From Brussels to Bolzano: Router Freedom, young hackers and our community

October is here and with it, our reflection on the last twelve months: check out our Software Freedom report to find out everything that happened in the last 365 days, and read the coming news about YH4F. Our latest podcast episodes are also out: one about our local Danish group and another about the European Digital Networks Act.

Every autumn feels like a turning point. The summer conferences are behind us, the fall and winter ones are coming up, and our yearly report, Software Freedom in Europe 2026, is out. In it, we look back at the work done by all our volunteers and employees over the last twelve months. We could not be more proud of this work, which is only possible thanks to everyone who has supported us over the last 25 years!

Volunteers are the foundation of our work. In one of our latest episodes of the Software Freedom Podcast, Bonnie Mehring sits down with one of our core volunteers: Carsten Agger, our Danish coordinator. They talk about how the local group in Aarhus began, why Denmark is taking a growing interest in digital independence, and what Free Software can mean for the public sector. Listen to episode 55 for a closer look at what local engagement looks like and to learn more about one of the people who is at the hear of this journey.

Our other new episode takes us from local groups to Brussels, and to a question that affects everyone with an internet connection: who decides which router you can use? In it, we talk about Router Freedom, the upcoming Digital Networks Act (DNA) which provides an opportunity to close the fragmentation gap that has weakened Router Freedom since the last telecoms reform, and our efforts to anchor the network termination point (NTP) at the passive physical point of the network by default across all Member States. Listen to the episode or read our position on the Digital Networks Act.

More podcast episodes but this time from the outside world 😉. Jithendra joined Dr. Simonetta Vezzoso for episode 6 of the DMA Vox Populi podcast. They discussed the role of civil society in litigation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the factual and technical contributions civil society organisations can make, and the challenges they face, particularly when it comes to funding their participation.

Back to our volunteer work but this time in Italy, thanks to Giacomo Alessandroni, Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is now part of the Italian national PCTO programme. This means Italian students can earn school credits for developing Free Software projects: and any Italian school can now add YH4F to its activities. You can read the full story and see how it works. While we wait for the new edition to start, the YH4F 2026 winners will be announced very soon.

Speaking of Italy, we are getting ready to head to Bolzano for SFSCON 2026, where our team and volunteers will give several talks, meet our Italian community, and talk with people who care about Software Freedom. You can find all our talks and the rest of our events on our events page. Come by our booth, say hello, and be one of the first to get our new merchandise!

And while you wait for Bolzano, you can relive some of what happened in the last months. The recordings of some of our talks are out: Bonnie at DevConf.CZ 2026 on engaging Gen Z and Alpha with Free Software, Alex on Free Software and the CRA, and Florian on what the FSFE and Star Trek have in common at FrOSCon 2026, while Ana talked about the presence of the FSFE on the Fediverse at Fediday 2026! You can find them all at media.fsfe.org. Grab a coffee and press play.

Are you an FSFE supporter? To make sure our communications reach you, please take a moment to confirm or update your postal address (by logging in on fsfe.org). Your support means the world to us, and we would hate for any news or thank you messages to get lost along the way.

We may be behind the wheel, but you’re the ones keeping us moving forward. You can support us, contribute to our work, and join our community. Are you using social media? If so, do not forget to follow us there! You can also follow the FSFE news in your RSS Reader.

Your editor, Ana

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SFP#56: Policy and EU: All about the DNA

Fall is finally here, and so is our next episode for the Software Freedom Podcast! In this episode Bonnie Mehring meets with Dario Presutti, FSFE's project manager working on different policy and legal topics. Together, they talk about software freedom and why the Digital Networks Act (DNA) is an opportunity to gain control over the devices connecting us to the internet.

In our 56 episode, Bonnie and Dario have a closer look at router freedom, the Digital Networks Act (DNA), and more specific the network termination point (NTP). The NTP is the point where the public network ends and a user's private network begins. A point that nowadays is defined differently across EU member states. This has created a patchwork of different rules and has left users' right to choose their own router uneven across Europe. The DNA represents an opportunity to harmonise the different rules across the EU so the FSFE is currently advocating, in Brussels, to ensure router freedom in Europe under this legislation. We want users to control their technology and have router freedom across Europe.

Take a break and join us to learn more about the Digital Networks Act, the FSFE's work with European policymakers, and how you can exercise and support router freedom yourself!

The policy work of the FSFE is an important part of building a future where people can control the technology they use. You can support our work by donating today!

Show notes

• Support our work for Free Software
• Stay up-to-date and join our Newsletter
• Router Freedom
• Digital Networks Act: the FSFE calls for strong and consistent protection of Router Freedom
• Router Freedom tech wiki
• Device Neutrality
• Digital Markets Act
• The Digital Networks Act
• Net Neutrality – European Commission
• BEREC – Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications
• Dario Presutti, FSFE's project manager for policy and legal topics

We are happy to receive your feedback on the Software Freedom Podcast and especially on the transcript of the episode. Please, email us to: podcast@fsfe.org. If you liked this episode and want to support our continuous work for software freedom, please help us with a donation.

Support FSFE