That's one slide.
That's fine.
OK, time is pressing, but let's try and move quickly.
What's lowly?
I know there's always some else.
It's not that bad today.
Last month from the Kingdom of Denmark, I happened to be here.
I'm going to be very explicit, because I only have around eight minutes.
I have prepared a deliberately sharpened argument.
Oh, speak closer to the microphone, sorry.
What I am going to say draws from practical experience,
working with the Danish municipality level, so the local government.
And this is years of attempting to make open source work at this level.
The claim I put forward is that European open source policy fails locally,
because it's designed for a different level.
Today, Europe builds digital policy in a multi-level system.
The EU sets ambitions.
The national governments translate these into strategies.
And the local governments are expected to implement.
Of course, this is a diversion or a division of responsibility that makes sense.
It's a democratic society, so it makes sense.
But this is also often where implementation breaks down,
because this is where policy actually meets reality.
And even though I draw from practices in Denmark,
I don't think Denmark is unique to this.
Across Europe, of course, the form differs a bit.
We have more or less decentralization, but all in all,
we have that implementation and risk is pushed downward,
and the control remains upward.
In the end, local authorities, they carry responsibility for a delivery.
But they often lack the incentives.
They lack the competencies, and they lack the protection from risk,
or against risk, you could say.
I don't think they are unwilling.
They are just constrained.
And they are focused on keeping existing systems running.
They need to provide services to citizens.
So what happens is that open source becomes optional.
And digital sovereignty becomes aspirational.
And the strategies they remain documents rather than real working systems.
One insight that stands out from my work that we go as to,
is related to my introduction, but policy designed for one level,
but implemented at another.
It transfers to the risk without transferring the power.
And that's guaranteed to fail.
Because in many public institutions,
digitalization is perceived as so complex that it's better left to others.
And it creates a culture of distance rather than ownership.
So open source suffers as a consequence.
Because it's assumed to be higher, even more competence,
and even more responsibility.
And out of this culture grows a convenient explanation.
The problem is technical, the problem is technical quality,
rather than structural power.
But when you really look at it, I don't think it is actually technical.
It's not a technical problem.
Because if you look at a typical Danish musicality,
there's quite a lot of complexity there.
Already run 3 to 500 IT systems that they manage every day.
Many of these are deeply integrated.
And I don't think it's unique to Denmark.
So complexity is not new.
It's something that's handled every day in the current system.
And replacing this software is not the main channels.
Transitioning the organizations are.
So just to give an example.
And so before everyone working with digital workplaces.
But if you look at the digital workspace,
we do know that the open alternatives exist.
They're there. They've been there for a long time.
But when the underlying infrastructure remains locked,
then the workspace just becomes a surface layer
that we put on top of a lot of deeper dependencies.
So we're just changing whatever the users are seeing.
Instead of changing or without changing.
What actually binds the organization or creates the vendor login.
And again, I think this is not by accident because governance contracts,
competence profiles, leadership structures.
It's all set out to minimize blame, minimize risk,
and not to enable the transition.
And another uncomfortable truth that I'm going to put forward
is that last IT vendors, they are often invited into advisory roles.
They help define what is considered realistic.
So they see the procurement culture.
And when it's the vendors defining the realism,
the sovereignty really follows.
So this is not a software problem.
It's a governance, it's a culture and it's a power problem.
And we need to look at it this way.
I think I'm holding up time because I'm keeping a steady pace here.
And keeping to my script.
So if we're serious, if Europe is serious about digital sovereignty,
we need policy.
Policy must enable the level that actually implements.
And not just the level that decides.
And it's always good to have some suggestions.
So it could require three shifts or it requires three shifts.
We need to distribute the risk.
Because local access, local government, they cannot bear all implementation risk,
while having no control over the strategy.
They need the room to experiment, to fail, and to trust, transition without being punished.
We also need the EU institutions to walk the talk, demonstrate feasibility.
Because if open source, sovereign solutions are considered good enough for Europe,
then start by proving that it actually works in Brussels.
We need to look at new projects.
They must become the exception that challenges the norm.
We have to stop doing what we've always done.
Because we're deep down in a hole right now, and we should stop digging.
That's the only way to get up, stop digging.
So we must consider new projects.
We must start new projects in a new way.
And I'll just skip something here so we can move ahead.
So the question here is, are we willing to start treating governance risk and power
as the actual challenge?
And what will we do differently tomorrow?
We could go home, ask who bears the risk, who holds the power,
and what structural conditions must change before this can work at scale.
Because if we want to move someone, first understand them,
and this means standing where they stand.
So, and not where you want them to stand.
Thank you.