Interoperable Europe +++ Cyber Resilience Act +++ AI Act

July is here and so is our newsletter! In this issue we have some updates on the latest status of the Interoperable Europe Act, the Cyber Resilience Act, and the Artificial Intelligence Act. The competition YH4F has just ended.

Table of contents

1. Cyber Resilience Act: First committee backs FSFE demand to protect Free Software
2. IEA: EU Parliament advances in strengthening the role of Free Software, yet needs to improve...
3. … and Council to exclude relevant stakeholders from contributing to an Interoperable Europe
4. Artificial Intelligence: EU: Majority for AI Act – and safeguards for Free Software
5. Germany: questions about the status of dPhoenix
6. 'Youth Hacking 4 Freedom': second edition ended
7. Planet FSFE: check out latest community news
8. Get Involved - Become a translator
9. Take Action! Add our email addresses to your contacts
10. Quote of the month
11. Contribute to our Newsletter

Cyber Resilience Act: First committee backs FSFE demand to protect Free Software

The Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) launched a landmark decision to protect Free Software developers in the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).

Read more about this

IEA: EU Parliament advances in strengthening the role of Free Software, yet needs to improve...

The two EP Committees for opinion, IMCO and LIBE, have adopted their texts on the Interoperable Europe Act. While both recognise the importance of Free Software for this regulation, the inclusion of the Free Software community in the Board remains uncertain. The wording on proper monitoring and evaluation goes in the right direction.

...and Council to exclude relevant stakeholders from contributing to an Interoperable Europe

The current draft from the Council on the Interoperable Europe Act is limiting the Interoperable Europe Board, and with this excluding relevant stakeholders from contributing to a more interoperable and innovative Europe. There is also a lack of improved wording in the area of monitoring and budgeting.

More info about this

Artificial Intelligence: EU: Majority for AI Act – and safeguards for Free Software

The European Parliament voted in favour of the AI Act with 499 votes in favour, 28 against, and 93 abstentions. Free Software is given safeguards; these rules must now be defended in the inter-institutional negotiations (also known as trialogue in which representatives of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission agree on an final text) and transferred to the Cyber Resilience Act and the Product Liability Directive.

Read more about this

Germany: questions about status of dPhoenix

A Free Software office and collaboration suite for the public sector is one of the projects with which the German government aims to fulfil the goals of the coalition agreement in relation to Free Software. But a closer look at the project raises the question whether our long-term demands for 'Public Money? Public Code!' are actually met.

'Youth Hacking 4 Freedom' second edition ended

The second edition of the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom contest has just ended. Almost 70 teenagers from all over Europe registered for this second edition that will have its award ceremony in October.

Check out the YH4F website for the latest updates about this competition!

Planet FSFE: check out latest community news

The FSFE planet is a aggregation of blog posts and thoughts of the Free Software community. Check out the latest posts about the FSFE booth in Veganmania in Vienna or the latest news from the KDE community.

Check out the latest posts

Get Involved - Become a translator!

Help us reach people in your country! Join our amazing group of volunteers who help translate our messages into their native languages. The Spanish translation team will also need an extra hand in the coming months as Spain holds the EU presidency for the second half of the year.

Check out how to contribute here

Take action! Add our email addresses to your contacts

Please remember to add contact@fsfe.org (and similarly with the rest of @fsfe.org email addresses) to your address book to ensure that our messages reach you and not your spam box.

Quote of the Month

"The FSFE does great work to further software freedom locally, nationally and in the EU and I enjoy the podcast and the News RSS so it felt natural to become a supporter. I also want to be more involved with the free software community."

Einar Mostad; English teacher, musician, IT student

Contribute to our Newsletter

We would love to hear from you. If you have any thoughts, pictures, or news to share, please send them to us at newsletter@fsfe.org. You can also support us, contribute to our work, and join our community. We would like to thank our community and all the volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible, with a special mention to our translators who make it possible for you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.

Your editor, Ana Galán

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IEA: EU Parliament advances in stengthenting the role of Free Software, yet needs more to improve

The two EP Committees for opinion, IMCO and LIBE, have today adopted their texts on the Interoperable Europe Act. While both recognise the importance of Free Software for this regulation, the inclusion of the Free Software community in the Board remains uncertain. The wording on proper monitoring and evaluation goes in the right direction.

The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) have today adopted by a large majority their opinions on the Interoperable Europe Act.

The IMCO Committee, following some of our demands, has highlighted the need for public bodies and institutions to prioritise the use of Free Software in order to support the creation of reusable solutions. Furthermore, it has also recognised our demand for clearer objectives and indicators to assest its achievement. Moreover, it has included measures to report and monitor the number of Free Software solutions developed and adopted by the public sector within the scope of the Regulation.

Unfortunately, no amendments to include more stakeholders in the Interoperable Europe Board were adopted, apart from the proposal to include the European Parliament as an observer. Therefore, it is now up to the lead Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) to take further steps forward in the direction of enriching the Board.

On the other hand, the LIBE Committee has briefly included the wording to encourage Free Software solutions when it comes to enhancing transparency in the processing of personal data within the scope of this regulation. However, this wording still needs to be improved by more firmly prioritising the use of Free Software for such purpose.

Lina Ceballos, FSFE Project Manager states: “We welcome that the European Parliament has taken notice of some of our demands, especially when it comes to proper monitoring and evaluation. However, there is yet the need to include more stakeholders in the governance. Thus we urge decision makers to recognise the role that the Free Software community could play in the Interoperable Board".

In the coming weeks, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) will agree on its text, which will most likely be voted in plenary after the summer break, and then enter into the inter-institutional negotiations. We call upon the decision makers to not only anchor the progress that IMCO and LIBE have achieved with their opinion but also to undertake the actions needed for a more inclusive governance approach by including the Free Software community as part of the Interoperable Europe Board. This is also true for the Council, that wants to exclude relevant stakeholders from contributing to an Interoperable Europe.

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Cyber Resilience Act: First committee backs FSFE demand to protect Free Software

The Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) today launched a landmark decision to protect Free Software developers in the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).

The Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) today launched a landmark decision to protect Free Software developers in the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). In September last year, the EU Commission presented the CRA. The proposal to exclude Free Software “outside the course of a commercial activity” would fail to address a large part of software that will not be covered but is deployed. Furthermore, smaller and non-profit projects would be harmed as they would have to bear major costs. We, therefore, proposed a solution that will lead to more security while safeguarding the Free Software ecosystem:

1. Liability should be shifted to those deploying Free Software instead of those developing Free Software and
2. Those who significantly financially benefit from this deployment should make sure the software becomes CE-compliant

Alexander Sander, FSFE Senior Policy Consultant explains: "The Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, a committee for opinion in CRA, has backed our demand and voted for the protection of Free Software developers in the Cyber Resilience Act. We are particularly delighted with the transfer of those protections into an article and the precise description of how Free Software should be protected in the future. The lead committee is now called upon to follow this vote".

Shortly, the leading committee, Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), will define its position and submit it to the plenary for a vote. After that, the trialogue with Parliament, Council and Commission will begin in order to reach a final agreement. At the same time, similar rules are being negotiated in the Product Liability Directive (PLD). Here, too, FSFE is calling for the protection of developers of Free Software. We thank all those organisations and individuals contributing to this position and making sure to safeguard Free Software in those files.

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Council to exclude relevant stakeholders from contributing to an Interoperable Europe

The current draft from the Council on the Interoperable Europe Act is limiting the Interoperable Europe Board, and with this excluding relevant stakeholders from contributing to a more interoperable and innovative Europe. There is also a lack of improved wording in the area of monitoring and budgeting.

The Interoperable Europe Act is aiming to enhance cross-border digital public services across the European Union. This proposal is currently discussed in the European Parliament and the Council. Through a Freedom of Information request, the FSFE caused access to the latest compromise text (.pdf) of the Council.

From this draft, it gets clear that the Council is seeking to limit the overall participation in the Interoperable Europe Board by hindering the possibility to include experts and other stakeholders with observer status in such board. This not only goes in the completely opposite direction of our demand for more inclusion of different stakeholders – especially the Free Software community – but it also undermines the position of the Expert Group on Interoperability of European Public Services.

This Expert Group consists exclusively of representatives of public authorities and they demanded (.pdf) back in 2021 to work “closely with different stakeholders. Some of them “private partners; local entities (e.g involving regions, municipalities), EU standardisation and other international organistations (OECD, UN, international standardisation bodies, etc.) as well as citizens’ representatives depending on the subjects to be handled”. With the current proposal, none of these stakeholders could even be invited to a board meeting nor be an observer, as proposed by the European Commission (.pdf).

The European Parliament would also not be part of the Interoperable Europe Board, which the Parliament's rapporteur, Ivars Ijabs -Renew Europe member- understandably changes in his draft report (.pdf) by suggesting to give the Institution a seat. Members of the European Parliament, like Jordi Solé on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, also call for the inclusion of Free Software communities, which is mostly in line with our demands.

Furthermore, the Council has failed in defining Open Standards, while doing very little to improve the way monitoring will be carried out after such legislation comes into force. The Council has also not taken note of the need for a proper budget allocation that will assist public administrations in executing the activities that will follow with this Act. At least a definition of ‘Open Source licence’ includes the four freedoms has been introduced [Art. 2 (8b)].This underlines the strong link between Free Software and interoprability.

As the European Parliament will agree on its draft position on the Interoperable Europe Act in the coming weeks, we urge EU lawmakers to address this matter by improving the Commission’s proposal, in order to ensure a robust and inclusive governance structure in which different stakeholders, including the Free Software community, can be part of the Interoperable Europe Board. A proper monitoring workflow and evaluation together with a dedicated budget are also very much needed to move forward. Right now, Europe has the chance to pave the way for a legislation that allows efficient, innovative cross-border administration by recognising the crucial role that Free Software and its community play in interoperability.

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EU: Majority for AI Act – and safeguards for Free Software

The European Parliament today voted in favour of the AI Act with 499 votes in favour, 28 against, and 93 abstentions. Free Software is given safeguards, these rules must now be defended in the trilogue and transferred to the Cyber Resilience Act and the Product Liability Directive.

With a large majority, the plenary of the EU Parliament today confirmed the compromises of the lead committees from May. The AI Act contains a far-reaching exemption from this regulation for non-profit organisations as well as small Free Software projects up to the size of micro-enterprises. The position of the EU Parliament must now be defended in the upcoming trilogue, in which the final text will be negotiated together with the Council and the Commission.

"With today's decision, the EU Parliament has demonstrated how Free Software can be regulated in a meaningful way. Developers must be protected, but at the same time those who significantly benefit on the market with the use of Free Software must also be responsible. This principle must now also be anchored in the Cyber Resilience Act and the Product Liability Directive", explains Alexander Sander, Senior Policy Consultant of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)

More information on the negotiations on the Cyber Resilience Act and the Product Liability Directive can be found here.

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