As the use of open source across European institutions and European public services increases, so does the need to manage and protect open source and treat it as a collective, shared and valuable European asset. It makes sense for European institutions and European public services to pool their resources and efforts in this regard. 

Building on the success of earlier projects such as OSOR, ISA2 and the EU-FOSSA initiative, MEP Marcel Kolaja via the European Parliament has commissioned and asked the European Commission to execute the FOSSEPS Pilot Project, to catalyse and establish this cooperation. 

FOSSEPS stands for Free and Open Source Solutions for European Public Services, which refers to the 2021 initiative entitled “Europe-wide solutions for free and open source software use by public services in the EU” financed under budget line PP 01 21 04.