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 country built its own specific features. French, German, and Dutch public officials have each used a version of the tool deployed within their respective administrations, making Docs a real success.
The project is not without technical complexity, however. “forks” (local variations of the code) have multiplied as adaptations have been made. “One of the challenges ahead is precisely to resolve these divergences and return to a cleaner common base capable of absorbing contributions from each team without fragmenting the ecosystem,” as Olivier Delteil explains.
Cultural and organizational challenges: the tip of the iceberg
Technical collaboration is one thing. But collaboration between administrative cultures is quite another! Throughout the project, Olivier Delteil observed how the three participating countries approached various topics in different ways:
- the interpretation of what constitutes a public administration,
- how to finance digital products,
- how to organize teams,
- or even how to make decisions.
These differences sometimes manifest in anecdotal ways: Olivier humorously recalls the omission of beer during a shared meal - an unforgivable cultural faux pas for the German and Dutch partners! But in some cases, these differences can also manifest at a more structural level. Synchronizing teams that do not have the same budget cycles, the same approval chains, or the same definitions of the “finished product” requires constant harmonization efforts.
Governance is precisely one of the most challenging tasks. There is currently no model to follow, no precedent. Everything has to be figured out from scratch, and many questions constantly arise:
- How can decision-making regarding a software product be shared among three member states?
- Who makes the final call when priorities differ?
- How can we integrate other countries (Italy and Luxembourg recently joined the consortium) without throwing everything off balance?
“These questions don’t yet have definitive answers,” Olivier Delteil admits honestly.
What this venture demonstrates, though, is that it is possible to get public administrations from different countries to work together on shared software. But only if we accept that this requires as much human effort as technical work. The tool alone is not enough; mutual trust, tolerance for cultural friction, and the ability to pivot when a product doesn’t suit all partners are just as crucial.
What remains to be built: sustainability, KPIs, and team autonomy
Two years after launch, three key challenges remain. The first concerns financial sustainability: how can these projects be sustained beyond the initial funding?
The second challenge relates to impact measurement. The teams acknowledge the need for robust KPIs to assess delivery speed, product quality, and actual adoption. This is a classic blind spot in public-public projects: without shared metrics from the outset, it is difficult to report to policymakers who provide funding without always having concrete data to understand what is being built.
The third challenge is organizational: giving technical teams enough autonomy to work effectively, without drowning them in coordination meetings. This is the constant tension in any inter-institutional project: the trust placed in the teams is precisely what makes them productive. “Operational freedom is a prerequisite for performance, not a luxury,” says Olivier Delteil
Good news: EDIC Digital Commons, a European consortium established by France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Luxembourg to support and accelerate the development of commons at the European level, is expected to eventually provide a more formal framework for this cooperation, in conjunction with the European Commission.
“With the EDIC Digital Commons (European Digital Infrastructure Consortium), we are building something truly new: a multinational open-source organization. This is a completely new concept, and it means that very complex governance issues are arising in real time.”
Boris van Hoytema, Open Source Program Office Lead, Ministry of the Interior of the Netherlands
A universal lesson: code as a common language that transcends borders
What this venture demonstrates is that it is possible for public administrations from different countries to collaborate using shared software... But only if we accept that this requires as much human effort as technical work. The tool alone is not enough; mutual trust, tolerance for cultural friction, and the ability to pivot when a product doesn’t suit all partners are just as crucial.
“Code is a universal language that unites nations. What is truly satisfying is to be its architects and witnesses.”
Alexander Smolianitski, Head of Open Source Products, ZenDiS (Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität der Öffentlichen Verwaltung, DE)