How France, Germany, and the Netherlands co-developed public tools | Interoperable Europe Portal

Skip to main content

Open Source Observatory (OSOR)

Join this collection

Bookmark

Like (2)

Co-developing public tools at the European level: lessons learned from two years of collaboration between France, Germany, and the Netherlands

How France, Germany, and the Netherlands co-developed public tools

Noemie Kempf

Published on: 19/05/2026

News

What happens when three European public administrations shift from coordination to co-developing digital tools ? Since 2023, the DINUM (the French Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs), its German counterpart, and the Netherlands have taken on this challenge.

Olivier Delteil, who specializes in European partnerships and programs at DINUM, shares the results of two years of international collaboration : improved software, committed teams, and a governance model yet to be imagined.

From vision to implementation: finding the right partners

In France, it all began with a simple goal, which has been expanded since 2023 as part of the government’s digital strategy: to equip public officials with open-source, high-performing, and sovereign digital tools.

But the DINUM’s vision hasn't been held at France’s borders - far from it! As early as 2023, the DINUM's OSPO team, tasked with advancing open source and digital commons within the government, identified a clear, broader potential.

“We quickly asked ourselves: if the software building blocks that make up digital tools are useful in France, they’re probably useful throughout Europe. Why reinvent the wheel in every country?,” says Olivier Delteil.

The first step in this collaborative vision, then, is to find partners motivated to contribute. Beyond “mere” signatories of a declaration of intent, what's needed are commited teams, ready to get their hands dirty building products . Government decision-makers, designers, developers, product managers... The success of the project lies in the diversity of its components!

To find its partners, the DINUM starts seeking out allies sharing the same challenges, the same values, and the same desire to move forward. Germany answers positively to the initiative in 2024, joined by the Netherlands in 2025.

The second step, essential to the sustainability of the collaboration, is to establish a robust funding model. The model adopted for the collaboration between France, Germany, and the Netherlands relies on two sources:

individual budgets provided by each government agency;

European funds , particularly through support from the European Commission.

However, as Olivier Delteil rightly points out, establishing the framework is not enough: “Once the stakeholders were on board, the terms defined, and the project approved, the question arose of how best to collaborate effectively.”

Hackathons to build connections... and write code!

The choice of the primary collaboration tool quickly falls on the hackathon format , as a proven and effective working method. Experience throughout the project has indeed shown that it is better to bring developers together in the same room, rather than having each team work in parallel via asynchronous video conferences. The shared physical presence and the short (but intense) duration of the format create a dynamic of cooperation, coupled with an increased capacity for problem-solving , which is difficult to replicate online.

The event held in Paris in 2025, dubbed “Hack Days,” illustrates this ambition: 53 teams from 17 countries, bringing together public officials, academics, students, and companies. The goal: improving the existing code on several LaSuite tools, enhancing it, and imagining new uses. The results are more than convincing: in three days, concrete features emerged .

The work schedule is also organized around what the teams call “100-day challenges ”: at the beginning of each cycle, specific goals are set, and about three months later, the teams present their results. This structured timeline forces teams to deliver quickly, even if it means producing features that are still imperfect but functional, and to break free from the perpetual incubation that often threatens inter-agency projects.

“The bottom-up approach has worked much better than the top-down one. What’s truly unusual in international cooperation between governments is that we’re producing code, not paper or signatures.”

Alexander Smolianitski, Head of Open Source Products, ZenDiS (Center for Digital Sovereignty in Public Administration, DE)

Docs: a real-life example of successful co-development

Among the products developed with our European neighbors; LaSuite Docs perfectly illustrates the dynamics at play. This collaborative text editor was developed on a shared codebase by the three partner countries, while adapting it to their specific needs .

The result: a shared technical layer , providing a stable and auditable foundation , upon which each...