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notes.
As you implement and ultimately what our views are on these questions or what does technological
sovereignty mean to us, what activity needs to be undertaken and what do we want to see
to achieve this European technological sovereignty, but also what do we need to do when we look
at our infrastructure?
Let's get started.
Welcome to the software freedom podcast.
This podcast is presented to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe.
We are a charity that empowers users to take control of technology and I'm Bonnie
Mary.
Today I'm here with Alexander Zanda.
Alex is the senior policy consultant for the FSFE and as you have already heard in
previous episodes in his work for the FSFE, he monitors the current happenings in the
European Union and also pushes for the recognition of free software.
In this policy and it will episode, Alex and I will talk about the European technological
sovereignty and digital infrastructure.
Any?
Yeah, Alex, I'm sorry, I'm a bit, I have a bit of a flu or cold, I hope you can bear
with me.
At least we are not in the same room, so you can't get together, I'm so happy that you
can bear with me.
Yeah, thanks for having me again.
So I had to search in the internet what any is.
Could you explain this to us a bit?
I know now that it's own infrastructure procedure, but yeah, it's spelled in capital letters
so it got the feeling there is something bigger behind us.
Yeah, it's an initiative procedure and it's an initiative procedure from the European
Parliament.
The European Parliament can up with discussions, proposals, reports, initiatives, in this
case, own initiatives to address topics they want to talk about where they have the feeling
that, for example, the European Commission is not working enough on some things or basically
these reports are to nudge the Commission to get active and also on the same time to
present the views of the European Parliament towards the Commission.
So since the European Commission is the entity that proposes law in the European Union,
so you can basically say that the European Parliament is asking with this own initiative
procedure with this report for lawmaking which then should come from the European Commission.
So one could say this is preparatory work from the European Parliament to address a topic
in this case, European technological sovereignty and digital infrastructure where they believe
that they want to present some views and that the European Commission, like based on these
views, then later on should get active and propose law which is going in this direction.
So it's first basically a request to get active in a specific area to identify gaps in lawmaking
and also second to also already present some positions and tell the Commission the views
of the European Parliament in order to allow their majorities afterwards so that the Commission
is presenting something which also finds majorities later in the Parliament, for example.
So that's the procedure and so one could say so this is happening in the EATRA
committee in this case so that's the committee for industry and the members of this committee
and the Parliament said we have some issues with sovereignty and our digital infrastructure.
We need to get active here and that's why they decided to write a report.
This was happening now so the report, the Trump report was presented in the European Parliament
and now the European Parliament discusses the proposal of the rapporteur and then we come up as
final report and push this towards member states and the Commission to get active in this area.
All right thank you very much one question regarding the any process.
Does this often lead to a law then or is this most often then without any effect?
No it's it normally leads to something so the latest example we all know is for example the AI
Act so the European Parliament started to work on the topic of AI very very early many many years ago.
They started to do this with this initiative report they even created their own committee for this
just to work on this topic and to present. So the position of the European Parliament
already to the Commission while they were working on their own proposal so it's very common
that the European Parliament gets active and tells the Commission where they want to see law
however the Commission do not have to react but in terms of goodwill and democracy normally the
Commission picks these reports up they are also part of the debate so they are also sitting in
the European Parliament giving statements to the report giving their views on the report so they
also already interact during this procedure with the European Parliament and normally it won't be
the case that the Commission then proposes a law with exactly the same terms or the exactly
the same scope but normally they come up with laws where they pick up these demands and requests
from the European Parliament and transfer this then into a law proposal so it's it's not that this
work is not considered by anyone it's it's definitely a useful procedure so to say first of all to
to find already positions in the Parliament and it's also good for the European Commission to
already learn before they start drafting a law what could be potential debates in the Parliament
what could be potential demands so that they can already pick them up in their specific drafts
and if you look at the European Commission's work program and their agenda of the next term
so the next five years it's definitely something they also want to work on so they also talk
about sovereignty they also talk about digital infrastructure and they also talk a lot about
how to protect this how a European answer to this could look like in particular in these changing
times and yeah it's to be expected that the European Commission will also propose law on the topic
that the European Parliament works on at the moment so it's it there will be definitely a follow-up
I think all right before we dive into the procedure or the report you also mentioned a word
little perter and now that this is the person who is active on this but I also guess they're
more than one person could you briefly outline who is behind this any now absolutely so every
report in the European Parliament be it such a own initiative report or be it a report on a
Commission proposal like in the Cyber Resilience Act or in the Copyright Debate so every every
file every report gets a so-called repertoire so this is the responsible person in the European
Parliament leading the debate for the European Parliament until it gets into the plenary and gets
a vote so this is basically the person who comes up with a very first draft so basically if it's
a Commission proposal an answer to the Commission proposal so one could say or in this own initiative
report so the very first draft the world sees is written by this repertoire so and then this
repertoire is coming from a specific group so it could be a social democrat it can be a green one
it can be a conservative so every group has so so to say the right to send reperters to reports
but as that there can be only one repertoire but the other groups also send so-called shadow
reperters the shadow reperters are then the leading persons for this file from a specific group so
ultimately what you have you have a leading repertoire coming from a group and then from all the
other groups that are in the European Parliament they send a shadow repertoire so that there's
basically one person from each group working on this file and it's being responsible for this file
so and these are the most important persons if you want to yeah lobby around these documents or
reports and if you want to reach out you normally reach out to the offices of the reperters or shadow
reperters because they are the ones guiding with the debate they are coming up with amendments and
negotiate these amendments to come up with so-called compromise amendments they are the ones who
prepare the voting list so they advise how the how the whole group should vote on this and this
is how basically a position is formed in the European Parliament then the committee votes on it
and from the committee it is transferred to the plenary where then all members of the European
Parliament vote on this and to organize this they have these so-called reperters and shadow
reperters who help to find the compromise on the text and to help to find majority so that's
basically their role so this means they're very close to the text they negotiate text they come
up with new ideas they find majority so that's why these are very important roles and positions
in this procedure however also other members of the Parliament and members of other groups can
also contribute to these reports by amendments so they can say I want to delete this part I want to
add a new word I want to add a completely new idea and all of these amendments yeah they need
to be discussed they need to be analyzed they need to be streamlined and they need to find
majorities and this is the work of these reperters so you can basically say it's comparable to a
share part in other Parliament or assistance in other Parliament that help to come up with a final
text so they have a very important role since they are basically the ones who are thriving a file
so one could say so those are the people you talk to when you want to have free software in there
absolutely so I definitely talk to them I also talk to others so as said there are sometimes
also other members who are active in a specific file so you not only have one person working on
digitally topics you have a few and you want to reach out to all of them however the most
influential person in a file is normally the rapporteur and so that's why it's so that you should
at least talk to the rapporteurs and the shadow rapporteurs let's say it like this and you might
also want to talk to others who contribute and you see this that they take part in the Parliamentary
debate so they speak up they present their position so this is a way where you learn about their
engagement and but also you see this when amendments are tabled so that they are also
other members other than the rapporteurs who table amendments who want to modify the text who
want to improve the text and these are basically normally the people that are involved in the debate
and these are the people you want to talk to until the moment there is a vote when there is a vote
then this is activity for all members and that's a moment where you might want to talk to all
members and tell them vote in this direction vote in that direction because of this and this reason
but until the moment there is a vote you normally talk with this group of people who are we
working on this file and normally do not talk that much with people who are not even in the committee
for example all right thank you so much for outlining this now I would say we can dive into the topic
directly what's the European technological sovereignty and digital infrastructure any about
and yeah who was behind this I mean in in in general one could say the the European Parliament
also like many other actors these days came to the conclusion that we talk a lot about
sovereignty we talk a lot about technological sovereignty also we talk a lot about our infrastructure
and the question is like what does it mean so how does this sovereignty should look like so we
have some views and we already presented them quite often on what we do believe what
sovereignty means digital sovereignty but there are also others that have other views on this term
so this term is not defined it's very vague and we are using it quite often but we do not really
know what it means and this also means we do not know as European Union and what to do precisely
so we do some piecework here some piecework there we might label as as something towards
sovereignty but if this is really the case we don't know since it's a lot of piecework and there's
not really a streamline concept for what is digital sovereignty and how do we achieve it what kind
of actions do we need this does it need slow making does it need funding all of these questions
they are not really addressed by these days however we have many actors who fill this world with
ideas and maybe already activities but nothing is streamlined in particular if you look at the
European Union 27 member states 27 opinions on something so there is definitely the need
to define this term a bit more and also to come up with dedicated actions towards this
so and these are questions that always arise when we talk about sovereignty and the European
way these days towards digitalization so are there things we need to watch out for in this
changing world and what does it mean for us so and in this and as part of this huge debate this
industry committee and that's also important so they come specifically with a few from industry
policy so that's why it's in the industry committee right they want to address these questions
this their specific point of view and so they decided as a committee for all groups
proceeding together and they decided we want to give an answer to this question so from our
perspective from the perspective from the industry and research committee we want to tell
as you can parliament and ultimately what our views are on these questions or what does
technological sovereignty mean to us what activity needs to be undertaken and and what do we
want to see to achieve this European technological sovereignty but also what do we need to do when we
look at our infrastructure so and it's a pretty planked paper in the beginning since as it's the
own initiative there's nothing where they respond to but where they pretty much fill a plank
paper with their ideas and this is organized now we are coming again to the to the procedures and
the rapporteurs might so important this is organized by giving to report to one rapporteur
and this rapporteur then writes a draft and based on the draft the other groups and meant to this
report so they they say are we this one is missing or this one is over the top we need to change
this and we want to have I don't know improvements here and there and this is then how normally
such a report is formed however since we have new majorities in the European parliament since the
last term we also have seen that these procedures are not used as they have been used in last
terms since we have this far right majority if the EPP goes with them and that's something yeah
we as FSFE here but also I mean members in the parliament try to come up with majorities that
are not formed with far right members or extremist members so and the thing is however since they
are elected they also get reports and in this case the rapporteur for this report for this own
initiative procedure is a French fascist so and this leads to the problem that's basically
from the procedure wise this person it's she's she's called knafos are knafos from the ESN
group she presented a report and so now the question from a procedure wise is do we really want to
amend to this report basically if we are for example liberal screens or left ones so and that's
I can imagine that would be the normal procedure but nobody wants to do this so what happened is
that they let the summer person write a report and then in the meantime the other groups came
together these shadow rapporteurs I was just referring to and the progressive ones came together
and thought how can we find a majority without her and how can we still work on the topic since
the topic is important and since the questions that come from from this report are important and
need to be addressed what can we do so and their solution is that they basically came up with
amendments that say to every point what summer says delete and proposed new text so what they do
basically is to say to whatever she said we want to delete this and we want to replace this with
other text so and this needs to be ultimately voted and could let to a situation that ultimately
there will be a report which is still under the name of Zara Knafo but that's not a single word
from her still in this report so that could be a solution and then the question is so from a
procedure wise what could happen is that she then says this is far away from what I think and so
I will list for my name from the report and then it's an unnamed each report coming from the
each committee with a majority without far right so that's basically the political game what's
happening in this specific file we are addressing that also addresses pretty much many topics we
are working on and that's why it's not a very normal procedure so to say so first of all it's
this own initiative procedure certainly we have this new majorities so we had a far right member
as a repertoire so in the from the procedure already a lot is different than to
normal finds files we worked on in the past and that's why next to content related questions like
that's an Open Source for example play a role in this sovereignty question or not
is basically also in the middle of some other questions that are around for example
who is a repertoire for this report and how do we find maturity so and that's something one needs
to know when we talk about this report so it's not just about content here but it's also about
how do we find majorities and will there be on the topics we work on for example the topic of
sovereignty this is a topic where there will be a progressive majority or will there be a far
right majority so there are a couple of questions that are not content related but that are really
important for the future of the questions of sovereignty but also on Europe in general I think
yeah I can imagine like I now I have to question why was she handed this any why was it passed
on to her do you know that by any chance so I mean a set of these are elected members so they
have the same rights than any other group and this also means that workload is distributed
between the members of the parliament so basically they are all equal and I think that's a good
thing for a parliament in general but this also means that they yeah if they want to work they
are allowed to work so and this also means it can't be that reports are only going always to the
big groups because that would mean the majority always get all the reports and that's a bit unfair
also if you look for example to the Greens or the Liberals or smaller groups that also want to have
a saying the back in the days we remember the data protection reform was the repertoire was a
green repertoire so it's definitely important and needed that also smaller groups get fired and
they do this by betting points so normally it is the case that yeah based on the strengths of a
group you you get some points to bet on reports so and by thus you can basically say as a group
I'm particularly interested so for example take the Greens it's very obvious they want to work
on topics of environmental questions so they will use a lot of their points to to get reports
that are related to their topics they work on I understand topics that are important for the party
like they use their points they have to get to get these kind of reports I'm not able to get
every report for themselves exactly so and it's so it's it's to bring some balance and to let
others also the chance to work on topics they are interested in so and in this case the far right
group here sent they want to bet some points and they want to get this report and work on this
topic of solidarity and I also think that something we have seen in other countries for example
in the in the hearing in the German Bundestag where there's also the AFD so a far right party that
also showed their strong interest in the question of sovereignty, technical sovereignty and they
I mean have a completely different view than us on the topic but they see it as definitely as a
topic they want to work on so and that's something we see in the far right in general they want to
work on digital topics and they want to talk about sovereignty and so this makes it slightly
difficult for us so to say since they are an important actor since they can bring a majority at
least in the European Parliament and that's something we fear and that's something we should have
on the radar and I do believe we don't want to talk about sovereignty in a nationalism way but
more in a European and global way and this is yeah a fundamental question we are discussing at
the moment and that's why it's so important where my priorities are going and one could also say
this is basically a test one we see here since this is the very first file in the European Parliament
where we see a fashion stripper tour it's also happening in our space and there will be law-making
upcoming by the European Commission in this direction and so this file is basically a very
important test run in order to see where majorities goes and in these majorities how they value
Open Source for example if we then talk about our topics so I mean worst case is that the
fascists come up with proposals for Open Source that are very national-centric while the so-called
progressive majority don't come up with anything on Open Source but they talk about for example
openness or something like this so and this is what I mean so it prints us often in situations
where we have to be very fine tuned in our activities also in our lobby activities and where we have
to be very careful whom we support when and why and what this then ultimately means so it's
definitely not a good idea to go for short wins in this term so to say but to have a long term
vision on where to go with whom we want to go and why we want to go there and so this is
so to say other than in other files where we could basically say we go with the majority we get
I do believe that in this term it will be definitely different and we have to watch out
for majorities very more than we did in the last term all right so thank you so much for the
background and thank you so much for yeah giving us some introduction there how is
Open Source seen in this report because actually I could not find a term at all I mean that's a
thing so I mean the knuckle person so the repertoire did not propose anything on Open Source so she
seems to not have this on the radar or she seems not to to see Open Source as a enabler for
sovereignty however if you then check the amendments there you can see that there are people
having Open Source on the radar and that they also want to bring it in this report so but here
again we see that there is so to say a slight shift so in the in the past we have already seen
that in particular conservatives and liberals they have a hard time to use the word Open Source
and promoted in a way that it's better than proprietary software for say in easy words
so they want to go with terms that don't discriminate towards others one could say
and with this they do believe that giving advantages to Open Source that this would be
unnecessary interference with the market for to say and that's my day I hesitate to come up with
these kinds of sayings so even if you have from the German conservatives for example a strong
statement a party statement where this is going in the direction of public money public codes
we don't see this reflected European might so they value Open Source they do believe that Open Source
is good however they won't go into the market and give somehow advantages to Open Source by
coming up with sayings like public money public code however they see the benefits so that's
that's something we also need to see so and for example you could also see in the cyber resilience
act so they don't want to harm this market so they came up with exemptions for Open Source so
this is what they do but they they are hesitant in order to they're over promoted so to say
in from from their perspective from their view so and this also means we had also in the past
other majorities social democrats decrees also the left ones that are very progressive when
it comes to to our ideas and that mainly follow our ideas on public money public code for example
right and that would they would be happy to to come up with such amendments and proposals
and we have also already seen in the past that these votes goes in this direction but EPP is hesitant
together with them so they abstain or even vote against so but since there are these new
majorities the EPP can decide with whom they go basically they can go with far right majority or
they can go with the progressive majority but this also means that they can bring in a lot of pressure
into this progressive group since they can always say if you don't want then we go to another
group where we already have a majority and the progressive part on the other hand don't have
this option so they can't create pressure on the EPP for example and say look if you don't
vote with us we find another majority since it is not there anymore so and this gives a very very
strong position to the EPP coming up with like a lot of texts that they want and they are the
progressive parts of the parliament have to eat it so to say since else they would go to a
fascist majority so and that's the that's a piggy point what I what I meant in the beginning
where I said we have to yeah watch out and see where majorities can go so and sometimes it might
be the case that we lose Open Source to not have Open Source in a fascist majority all the
other way around right so and this is this is quite difficult and it's challenging however
also from the amendments what we can see is and that's already also something where we can see
that the EPP is not only pressuring this progressive majority but also basically talking to them
and and value this input so what the what the EPP does and this so they came up with with a group
of SMD and Liberals so the the Conservatives the Social Democrats and the Liberals together
as a group amended to this report and by thus they also already show that they have a majority
so and they amended in a way that they talk about openness and interoperability and common
standards so what they don't compromise us basically it's about compromises also in words
so it's pretty much compromising in words so I mean if you take openness in the
availability and common standards it's very unlikely that you will achieve this without Open Source
or free software right or open standards it's it's it's it's it's it's nearly impossible I'd say
however they are afraid of using the term Open Source the only ones bringing up
amendments with the term Open Source are the greens and the left ones so these those groups also
precisely added amendments on the term Open Source and and want to be clear on this so to say
and that's a situation where we are so on the one hand we could bend the the terms openness
interoperability and common standards to a way that we say that this is basically Open Source
or we nudge them as long as possible that they say it and I do believe that's important that
they say it and this is definitely something we do but it could be that the the the EPP
won't take this and this is then also what I meant with the test one right so if this test
one we can see how far they go with the wording where the problems with the wording so what could
be potential outcomes and majorities and where are so to say red lines for them and this will be
particularly interesting in the in the next weeks to see if the term of Open Source
can find its way in this report because I do believe if we talk about European technological
sovereignty we have to talk about Open Source at the same time you see a debate at the moment
it's just called by European and this is also something what we fear is that people do not
understand that Open Source is global so and it's good that it's global and there is no European
Open Source or US Open Source or Chinese Open Source but there's only global Open Source
and this is also something I think for the next term what we need to explain is sovereignty is
only possible with free software and free software is global and it's good that it's global
so and I think these are the two main pain points so to say in the debate we need to discuss
in the next five years and then we need to find majorities and for this precisely this report but
we are discussing now is a very good test run where we can see a lot and then also adapt our
strategies and ideas how we talk to the people how we convince them once we once we bring in some
lighting this is a short break for our own cause thank you for listening to the software
podcast working for software freedom and producing podcasts costs money please consider supporting
us with a donation on the fsfe.org/donate and then the show notes I see so this is very
interesting to watch over the next weeks will you care when I own this absolutely absolutely and
we try to influence it yeah so that's that's also important and I mean I'm sure we will put the
information to the file in the in the show notes so feel free to also reach out to the members
of the parliament so you can see the repertoire and the shadow recorders the amendments are also
linked so you can also see who tabled what and you are absolutely free to reach out to them
email addresses are easy to find and ask them to add Open Source to the report and to connect the
topic of serenity with the topic of Open Source and be more clearer on the terms of openness in
the availability and standards so it needs to be Open Source in the availability and open standards
that are compatible with Open Source so I think if we have this then we have a good report
even if you see it's going in the right direction and they understood that inner
availability is key in particular when we talk about European administrations
but the only thing I'm asking myself why don't you then just clearly say in the availability
is only possible with this Open Source because else I mean how should this happen I don't know
that's what I'm asking myself as well I'm like why are they so afraid of the spread but the
important thing is that we reach out to them and tell them that we as people think that this is
very important absolutely and as if we will follow this file and also like continue
than the work on this serenity terms so it's really just a starting point for the next five years
so we this the topic will also be done about funding about how do we support movements
and this is then also important where the money goes for example right so even if you have this
report there will be a way more questions that need to be addressed in the next five years and
we will be around and keep you updated in this podcast but also on fsfe.org and other channels
thank you so much for your time thank you so much for walking us through this report
thanks for having me this was the software freedom podcast if you like this episode
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