OpenForum Europe Summit: Presentations online

The OpenForum Europe Summit which took place in Brussels on Thursday last week was a highly successful and informative event with a fine set of excellent speakers and panelists.

In my last blog entry I reported in detail about Vice-President Kroes' speech which was a powerful interpretation of the Digital Agenda and the most important actions associated with it.

All presentations and speeches that were given at the Summit are now available online on the OpenForum Europe Summit 2010 website. Shortly the recordings will be added, too.

In addition, you might also want to take a look at the twitter entries that were posted during the summit and have been added since then.

Europe ready to continue taking leadership on Openness

Yesterday, Vice-President Kroes of the European Commission, responsible for the Digital Agenda, gave the opening keynote speech at the OpenForum Europe summit in Brussels. The conference room at Autoworld Brussels was packed with people including some high level representatives on IT technology and standardisation from governments, industry and communities.

VP Kroes' speech was extremely powerful and inspiring. It is available on the Commission website and definitely worth reading. Building on the strong substance of the recently published Digital Agenda for Europe , VP Kroes set the directions for Europe to be a leader in the digital age. The EU will continue as a pacesetter taking leadership on openness and on defining open government IT policies.

VP Kroes started with reconfirming her position expressed two years ago, that “choosing open standards is a very smart business decision” stressing the importance of open standards for interoperability and making it very clear how highly she rates openness: “I am still a big fan of open standards. I believe in openness, and I believe in practising what one preaches.” And to prove her point on openness she asked the simple rhetorical question which standards are likely to get more uptake: those that you have to buy, acquire a license and pay royalties or those that you can simply download from the web and that are freely available for implementation. Just to be clear, that latter is what open standards are about.

From this starting point, the Commissioner elaborated on some of the key issues that are on the Commission's to-do list to be tackled for getting the Digital Agenda going. Let me take a glimpse at some of them.

First on VP Kroes' list was the reform of the European standardisation system. She reconfirmed the plan for reforming the European standardisation system introducing processes for making global open standards from fora/consortia like OASIS, W3C etc. available from Europe, e.g. by assessing these standards against a set of openness criteria.

Next on her list was IPR. Ms. Kroes stressed that she has nothing against including IP into standards but there is a need for more transparency and certainty. In particular she highlighted ex ante declaration as a possible way to explore further in standards organisations.

Turning to the use of standards in the public sector VP Kroes clearly expressed that public authorities need to be careful of not getting locked in using proprietary software. An example I liked most she used was that is inacceptable that kids in school are forced to use some specific vendor software. Rightfully, she considers getting into ock-in a waste of public money and made clear that openness and the focus on standards are the best way to prevent that.

With a similar focus on how tax-payers' money is spent, VP Kroes went on stressing the importance of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) for fostering cross-border interoperability in Europen eGovernment. She outlined that the current EIF is “not bad”, that it “sets out a list of characteristics of 'open standards'”, but that improvemens are still possible.

To me, if I could bring-in a wish list, I would hope that this means that the EIF 1.0 will remain the foundation of thinking and will be supplemented rather than fundamentally reworked. EIF 1.0 has been at the core of European leadership on openness and interoperability. What in my mind is needed is not a new EIF but simply supplementing it by providing more details in some areas like infrastructure, architecture, etc.

Before reaching the end of her speech Ms. Kroes briefly touched on the importance of interoperabilty and on efforts for making companies disclose relevant interoperability information.

Ms. Kroes concluded that interoperability and standardisation play a high role in the Digital Agenda – also on a horizontal level for fostering innovation in areas of technology integration. She mentioned eHealth and smart metering as examples. She finished by pointing out that “there will be plenty who try to stop change”, but that she will not rest and will work towards this change.

I am sure that this speech from VP Kroes will get a wide reception and will be considered a cornerstone for the Commission's work ahead. It was an enlightening interpretation of the Digital Agenda highlighting the key topics for action and almost providing a roadmap of Commission activities for the rest of this year.

The OpenForum Europe summit was a wonderful set up and VP Kroes' opening keynote was a great starting point for a great, highly informative and high level conference. All presentations will soon be available online on the OpenForum Europe summit website.

OpenForum Europe Summit on Openness at the heart of the EU Digital Agenda

The OpenForum Europe will hold its annual summit in Brussels tomorrow, Thursday, June 11, starting at 9 am in Brussels, Autoworld, 11 Parc du Cinquantenaire. The summit is open for everyone - see the invitation and agenda on the OpenForum Europe website.

The agenda has largely been inspired by the European Commission's Digital Agenda. Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes will give the opening keynote - which alone is worth attending the summit. Almost exactly two years ago VP Kroes, the Commissioner for Competition, spoke at the OpenForum Europe taking a strong stance on openness and open standards. The Digital Agenda presented by VP Kroes some weeks ago can be seen as a direct continuation of her positions and reasonings two years ago.

The summit will continue with two sessions on the open digital European market and on open eGovernment. The OpenForum Europe managed to get numerous high level speakers for this summit so that high quality and lots of interesting thoughts and inspiring and innovative thinking are guaranteed. I am all enthusiastic about it. Let's go and participate.

On reading the responses to EU Commission's public consultation on standardisation

The EU Commission's public consultation on the European standardisation system ended about 2.5 weeks ago. All responses which the Commission received have meanwhile been published and are available online on the Commission web site. 

Curious as I am, I scanned through several of the responses last night – not all, though, since the Commission received many – really many. So I just picked some of which I thought could be interesting. Below I record a handful of observations which I would like to share with the world (hello world!):

1. Reservations about changes prevail: The responses I looked at are far from enthusiastic about change. Almost everybody stresses that the current European standardisation system works well and its successful structures should not be jeopardized. Even more, some respondents seem to be almost frightened about possible changes and therefore give strongest “No”-statements on almost all questions. Personally, I think this might partially be due to the fact that the direction the Commission is planning to go for the revision of Directive 98/34 is not clear yet. Together with the confusion around the options listed in the context of the Impact Assessment study this might have led to a general notion that arguing against any change is the lowest risk.
   
2. Successful lobbying: There are obvious verbatim repetitions in the responses which shows that some successful lobbying with prepared responses was done ;-)
   
3. Strong support for ICT specific solution: A suprisingly high number of respondents stress the need for the reform of the EU ICT standardisation policy as proposed in the EU Commission's ICT White Paper.  This goes across all kinds of organisations and is not limited to ICT-near groups. So to conclude: there is (i) a widespread awareness of the different global structures in ICT standardisation compared to other setors; (ii) a broad consensus on the need for the changes as proposed in the ICT White Paper; and (iii) a broad consideration that the proposals of the Commission are well-defined.
   
4. Confusion about the introduction of the WTO Principles: Several respondents reject the introduction of the WTO Principles into the European standardisation system. Several others point out that the current Directive 98/34 already lists principles in whereas clause 24 on which the European standardisation system is founded. The Commission questionnaire had not mentioned that this list is already today part of the Directive. Some stress that the WTO Principles are already implemented by the ESOs and that, therefore, it is not necessary to introduce them. And others bring this proposal in context with the establishment of further ESOs – which they then reject. Whatsoever, there seems to be a lot of suspicion around this proposal. I believe the WTO Principles are the internationally recognised high-level principles for standards development and there is no reason why the current list in the Directive should not be replaced with a reference to the WTO Principles.

If I were asked to draw some conclusion from my readings, I should come up with what has a good chance of becoming my ceterum censeo and propose to focus on the ICT standardisation reform. It is well-defined in the ICT White Paper, it's pressing need is obvious and widely recognised, and the proposals brought forward by the Commission receive broad stakeholder support.

The implementation should be done in a successor-document to Council Decision 87/95 with a focus on the use and implementation of standards and on interoperability. This should be de-coupled from the horizontal standards review of Directive 98/34. And it could and should be done fast.

A first reading of the Digital Agenda for Europe

Last week the Commission published its final version of the Digital Agenda. This was developed under the leadership of Commissioner Kroes who took over the responsibility for the Digital Agenda with the new European Commission earlier this year.

The Digital Agenda is one of the so-called seven flagship initiatives of this Commission and its Europe 2020 strategy. The Digital Agenda's basic objective is given in the very first sentence of the document:

“The overall aim of the Digital Agenda is to deliver sustainable economic and social benefits from a digital single market based on fast and ultra fast internet and interoperable applications.”

Thus the Digital Agenda identifies the two key pillars of the digital age: (i) integration, networked societies and economies with the internet as the prime medium for communication and integration; and (ii) – close linked with the first – interoperability, interoperable applications that allow the exchange of data and the use of information and data.

The Digital Agenda covers the full spectrum of aspects, technologies, requirements and actions along these lines. It makes many excellent points and in general deserves a lot of praise and support. It integrates across Commission DGs and provides a consolidated and consistent strategy for the next decade. In the following I want to focus on the aspects around standardisation and interoperability. These play a key role, for sure, since the “Digital Agenda can only take off if its different parts and applications are interoperable and based on standards and open platforms” (p. 5).

Regarding standardisation, it is critical for the Digital Agenda that the changes and recommendations get implemented which the Commission outlined in its 2009 White Paper on “Modernising ICT Standardisation in the EU - The Way Forward” (COM(2009) 324 final). These changes will, above all, provide Europe with the necessary means for using and implementing standards that were developed globally and got wide market acceptance. And the white paper recommendations take precaution that only such standards will be eligible for use which were developed in open and transparent processes.

The Digital Agenda has taken this up as Key Action 5 announcing that the Commission will “propose legal measures on ICT interoperability by 2010 to reform the rules on implementation of ICT standards in Europe to allow use of certain ICT for and consortia standards” (p. 15). And it is outlined that the Commission will further promote the use of standards in public procurement because this will ensure interoperability, increase competition and reduce the risk of lock-in.

Regarding interoperability, the Commission stresses that in addition to the activies in the ISA programme (Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations), most notably the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and the European Interoperability Strategy (EIS), the Commission will “Examine the feasibility of measures that could lead significant market players to license interoperability information” (p. 16).

The Digital Agenda also touches on the issue of IPRs in standardisation. The Commission will further look at way to improve the situation for IPR transparency and certainty in the context of standardisation. Ex ante rules to be applied in standards organisations is one concrete example that is given.

To my mind the Digital Agenda is a milestone in the early work of the new Commission. It has potential to really drive governments, societies and economies in Europe as we are at the start of a decade that promises to lead us to very new and partly unimaginable realms of the ways we live and work. I highly welcome the clarity and the focus on change in the Digital Agenda. The ICT standards reform, for instance, has been on the Commission's table for too long already, all proposals and comments have been made – the Digital Agenda now puts it again into the proper – and highly relevant – context of the overall digital strategy for Europe. 

I trust that the legal implementation will be driven fast now. It is of utmost importance for the success of using ICT in policy making, above all in innovation policy, take, for instance, the areas of eEnergy and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) dealt with in the Digital Agenda. If Europe wants to drive innovation in such leading-edge areas it needs to include ICT standards from global fora and consortia.

Some criticism was made regarding the lack of the term “open standard” in the Digital Agenda. This is, for sure, true. A concept like open standards that is so braodly used and applied including by EU member states can't be ignored by the Commission. While I understand that the term is not a “formal” term used by the Commission for European standardisation, there is no reason not to use it at all. Open standards are important – especially in the context of the internet, of software interoperability and of eGovernment.

Yet, the lack of using the term “open standard” seems to be really *just* an issue of terminology, not of concept or content. The Digital Agenda is very clear that it talks about “open platforms” (e.g. p. 5; p. 25) and about standards “which can be implemented by all interested suppliers” (p. 15). And – as mentioned above – the Digital Agenda is very clear on reducing lock-in and means to enforce interoperability. So there might be a little spot that the term “open standard” is not even mentioned, but it does not seem to be something to be worried about.

I am positive that this Digital Agenda will have a strong push effect for Europe; for openness, interoperability and the use and implementation of standards. It is in line with the overall Commission Europe 2020 strategy. It makes many things around ICT concrete and combines the different Commission's DG's efforts into a consistent strategy. And it provides a number of prerequisites and key actions for fostering innovation in Europe. The ball is still with the Commission, though, to go for a fast implementation of the actions.

Still open: EU public consultation on reform of European Standardisation System

The European Commission is moving on with it's agenda regarding the revision of the European Standardisation System. Following the EXPRESS panel and its report and the work on the obligatory Impact Assessment which the Commission has had done over the last two months, a public consultation was launched some weeks ago inviting everybody to give input on the revision of the European Standardisation System. The consultation is still running until May 21.

Just to remind everyone: like EXPRESS this consultation is not specific to IT and communication technologies (ICT), it covers the full spectrum of standardisation. On the other hand, the Commission is explicit that this consultation is not meant to repeat last year's consultation on the ICT White Paper and thus the specific ICT issues that had already been addressed are excluded from this new exercise. This does, however, not mean that the consultation is irrellevant for ICT. Far from it, it asks several questions about standardisation and the European Standardisation System that are of high importance for anyone interested in standardisation – including ICT. 

In the context of this consultation some public debate has built up on the reform of the European Standardisation System – including a lot of speculation and a good deal of FUD. Partly this may result from the options which the Commission had drafted as the basis for the Impact Assessment study. Some of these options would, indeed, mean a fundamental restructuring of the European Standardisation System, if not an abolishing of the current system. And partly it may result from the fact that the Commission has not yet presented a precise outline on which changes are actually being considered; the questions of the current consultation only give some vague hints and leave a lot room for interpretation. The best overview can be gained from the Roadmap the Commission has drafted up.

I always like a vivid debate. Makes things more exciting than just silence and stiff exchange of positions. But for sure the facts need to correct, the style needs to be professional and the overall attitude needs to be democratic, i.e. respect others and their opinions, as well, listen and be open for new arguments. Openness might, in fact, be a key aspect in the overall debate: openness for new things, for innovative add-ons to the current system. In my personal resumee on the EXPRESS report I blogged about what I believe was not considered in the required detail yet and what is important for standardisation in Europe. Overall the system in Europe works well. But it is the pivotal improvements that are required for future success. And for the ICT sector the Commission's ICT White Paper provides highly innovative proposals for urgently needed improvements.

In my opinion the following aspects are most critical regardnig the revision process of the European Standardisation System:  

1. Fast revision of ICT standardisation policy: The Commission needs to go for the revision of ICT Standardisation Policy as laid down in the ICT White Paper last year soon as possible. The ICT White Paper presented a consistent programme for change and received broad support in the public consultation. The changes are highly critical for effective innovation policy making and in general for innovation, competitiveness and growth in Europe.
2. Separate revision of horizontal standardisation system and ICT policy: The revision of the ICT standardisation policy should be decoupled from the horizontal review of the European Standardisation System. They are different in scope: While the horizontal review is concerned about the development of standards in support of regulation and legislation, the focus of the modernising of the ICT standards policy is about the use and implementation of standards for promoting interoperability and competitiveness. 
3. No need to fundamentally reconstruct the current system, but a need to innovate: The current European Standardisation as governed by Directive 98/34 works fine. What is important, though, is that there are some specific, innovative, pivotal improvements that make the system fit for the next decade, in particular for coping with all challenges of globalisation. The future European Standardisation System needs to be flexible enough for reacting to global (and other) trends effectively and without coming into a deadlock.

Everybody still has the chance to submit innovative ideas in the context of this consultation. It will be very interesting to see all the submissions once they are published on the Commission website. In my opinion the Commission is well set-up for taking the necessary steps for innovative reform of the European Standardisation System. ICT could move ahead fast with a focus on the implementation of standards. This would manifest Europe's global leadership in standards policy.

Spring impressions from Heidelberg

Spring has made a pause again with rather cold and cloudy weather outside. But the last weeks saw some fabulous days with open-space life returning. The following pictures are some impression of the riverside lawn at the Neckar in Heidelberg on some of the first nice, warm and sunny weekend days this year. Spring ... please come back....