Launch of the Digital Commons EDIC in The Hague
On December 11, 2025, NLnet attended the official launch of the Digital Commons European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (DC-EDIC) in The Hague. DC-EDIC seeks to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty by building a coordinated ecosystem around digital commons. Its objectives include facilitating access to funding, supporting the development and scaling of shared digital solutions, reinforcing public-sector engagement, and enabling participation in strategic digital commons initiatives. The consortium is designed to serve as a central access point for public administrations, open-source communities, and developers, while also acting as an incubator for key European digital projects, such as a European digital workplace.
NLnet contributed to the early discussions leading to the establishment of the EDIC. From our perspective, it is essential to maintain a structured catalogue of mature, deployable, open source digital solutions that can be adopted at European, national, and local levels. Many of these solutions have already been supported through the Next Generation Internet (NGI) programme, creating a strong opportunity for Member States to reuse and build upon existing, publicly funded technologies.
The morning programme featured interventions from Member States that have already joined DC-EDIC, as well as from those participating as observers with the intention of joining. The event concluded with the formal launch by the Dutch Deputy Minister of the Interior. Participating Member States expressed a high level of ambition and a shared commitment to cooperate closely with open source communities, individual developers, and industry stakeholders.
In the afternoon session, Bert Hubert addressed the policy and strategic risks associated with dependence on non-European cloud service providers. He published his keynote on his website. He stressed that any transition to alternative solutions must meet end-user requirements in full in order to ensure adoption and maintain trust. This was followed by two panel discussions: one on the current state of digital commons in Europe, and another on the future role and priorities of DC-EDIC. While concrete operational actions have yet to be defined, reflecting the consortium’s early stage of development, expectations among stakeholders are high. The event concluded with closing remarks by the Dutch Chair of DC-EDIC, CIO-Rijk Art de Blaauw.
