Belgium and Netherlands join forces on open standards and open source
The Belgian and the Dutch administrations have agreed to coordinate their policies on open standards and open source. "We will promote open standards and open source internationally", the Dutch minister for Foreign Trade Frank Heemskerk said in a statement.
A memorandum of understanding was signed on 9 April by the Belgian minister for Economy and Reform Vincent van Quickenborne and his Dutch colleague Heemskerk during a meeting in Brussels.
The two countries have not worked out the details of the agreement, commented a spokesperson for the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs. "Belgium is interested to know more about the Dutch policy on open standards and open source."
The two countries also expect to share examples of open source implementations.
According to the spokesperson, the Dutch government's resource centre on open standards and open source, NOIV are already working with their counterparts at the Federal ICT advisory, Fedict, on implementing the open document format ODF.
The cooperation will entail more than an exchange of documentation, said the spokesperson. "We expect the two countries will agree on policy developments regarding open standards and open source in the European Union."
Digital skills
The two countries also agreed to jointly increase digital skills of their citizens. The Dutch ministry will make available to Belgium a test of these skills, the DQ Test. The two will also exchange information in order to fight acquisition fraud and deceitful trade practises.
More information:
Statement by the ministry of Economic Affairs (in Dutch)
Statement by the Belgian Government (in Dutch)
IT professional news item (in Dutch)
Automatiseringgids news item (in Dutch)
DQ test (in Dutch)
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