https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/03/05/cra-guidances/ [post] Skip to content Monday, March 09, 2026 TDF Community Blog TDF Community Blog * * TDF Home * LibreOffice Home * Grant Requests * Tenders * Media Hub * Merchandise * Financials & Reports * Donate Search for: [ ] [Search] Home >> UPDATED Request to the European Commission to adhere to its own guidances UPDATED Request to the European Commission to adhere to its own guidances 2026-03-052026-03-06 Italo Vignoli The European Commission has accepted our request, and starting from today - Friday March 6 - has added the Open Document Format ODS version of the spreadsheet to be used to provide the feedback. We are grateful to the people working at DG CONNECT, the Commission's Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, for responding to our request within 24 hours. At this point, the rest of this message is no longer relevant, and the call for action is no longer necessary. ARCHIVED MESSAGE The European Commission has spent years advocating for open standards, vendor neutrality, and digital sovereignty. The European Interoperability Framework explicitly recommends open formats for public sector digital services. The EU's own Open Source Software Strategy calls for reducing dependency on proprietary technologies, and the Cyber Resilience Act itself is designed to address systemic risks from unaccountable technology dependencies. On March 3rd, 2026, the European Commission published a request for feedback on to the guidances to be provided in relation to the CRA, which must be provided through the linked spreadsheet in .xlsx format, a proprietary format that makes interoperability extremely difficult due to its ever changing and undocumented features. This is not a minor procedural oversight. It is a structural bias built into the process which sends out a clear message: full participation in EU policymaking requires a Microsoft licence. We ask the European Commission to lead by example by following its own guidances in relation to interoperability and at to least provide, alongside the proprietary format generated by the proprietary software and services they use, also an Open Document Format (ODF) file which is an actual interoperable and internationally recognised standard. While the Commission evaluates plans to upgrade its infrastructure and services to Open Source solutions, with the aim of improving resiliency and reduce risky dependencies, it should implement in its standard procedures the release of documents in ODF format to allow all citizens, organisations and institutions to participate in the democratic processes. #CyberResilienceAct #OpenStandards #DigitalSovereignty # OpenSource #LibreOffice #ODF CALL FOR ACTION Dear Commission representatives, We are writing to provide feedback on a procedural matter that, while perhaps appearing minor at first glance, carries significant implications for the principles underpinning EU digital policy -- in particular the commitments to open standards, interoperability, and vendor neutrality that the Commission itself has championed in multiple legislative and strategic contexts. The stakeholder feedback template for the Cyber Resilience Act Guidance document has been made available exclusively in Microsoft Excel format (.xlsx). This choice is, respectfully, difficult to reconcile with the Commission's own stated commitments. The .xlsx format is a proprietary format defined and controlled by Microsoft Corporation, a private entity incorporated in the United States. In fact, although OOXML (ISO/IEC 29500) has been approved as a standard, its implementation has never complied with the specifications of the standard itself, as widely documented in the literature on interoperability. Requiring participants to use this format as the sole vehicle for structured data entry effectively conditions participation in a public consultation on the availability or willingness to use software produced by a single supplier. This stands in direct contradiction to several principles the EU has advanced: * The European Interoperability Framework (EIF), which recommends the use of open standards in public sector digital services and the avoidance of lock-in to proprietary technologies. * The Open Source Software Strategy 2020-2023 and its successor, which promote the use of open source and open standards across EU institutions. * The spirit, and arguably the letter, of the very Cyber Resilience Act itself, which seeks to reduce systemic risk arising from dependency on unaccountable or opaque technology components. A consultation process that requires respondents to use a proprietary format produces a structural bias: it disadvantages individuals, organisations, and public administrations that have made the entirely legitimate and EU-endorsed choice to operate on open source software and open formats. A citizen or small organisation using LibreOffice, for instance, may encounter compatibility issues when working with the provided .xlsx template. A government body that has migrated to ODF-based workflows faces an unnecessary obstacle. The remedy is straightforward. Feedback templates of this kind should be provided in at minimum two formats: one open format (ODF spreadsheet, .ods, being the obvious choice, as it is a true ISO-standardised format with no proprietary ownership) and one widely-used proprietary format for those whose environments require it. Ideally, a plain-text or web-based form would supplement both, removing the spreadsheet dependency entirely for respondents who prefer it. The Commission's credibility on digital sovereignty, open standards, and vendor-independent infrastructure is undermined -- symbolically but meaningfully -- each time its own processes rely exclusively on proprietary formats from non-European technology vendors. The CRA is precisely the kind of legislation where procedural consistency with stated principles matters most. We respectfully urge the Commission to review its template distribution practices and to adopt a format-neutral approach to stakeholder consultation as standard policy going forward. Yours faithfully, Board of Directors The Document Foundation Berlin, March 5, 2026 Post navigation Further Update about Font Replacement How donations helped the LibreOffice project and community in 2025 Related Posts * LibreOffice for Education: Regaining Digital Sovereignty 2026-03-06 * How donations helped the LibreOffice project and community in 2025 2026-03-06 * Further Update about Font Replacement 2026-03-03 Leave a Reply Cancel reply You must be logged in to post a comment. What is LibreOffice? LibreOffice is a free and private office suite, compatible with Microsoft Office / 365. It is open source and has regular updates with new features and improvements. Animated banner outlining how donations are used: Your donations are helping us to support hackfests around the world; Expand our infrastructure with new software services; Pay a small team working on release building design, documentation and more; Every year, organise the LibreOffice Conference; Contract a dedicated quality assurance engineer; Fund tenders for writing and improving LibreOffice code. Donate and let's make LibreOffice even better! Just click on this image. Thank you! Search Search for: [ ] [Search] RSS TDF Planet * LibreOffice for Education: Regaining Digital Sovereignty * How donations helped the LibreOffice project and community in 2025 * UPDATED Request to the European Commission to adhere to its own guidances * Further Update about Font Replacement * ODF is just the first of the advantages of LibreOffice * Protocol Versions 16 and 17: Implement the latest protocol versions to support Firebird 4 features. * QA/Dev Report: January 2026 * A trick to develop a Windows-specific clipboard format support on other platforms, using UNO API * Improving deleted commented text ranges in Writer's DOCX filter * Validating ODF and OOXML files Meta * Log in * Entries feed * Comments feed * WordPress.org Press Releases The Document Foundation Releases LibreOffice 26.2.1 with Contributions from Community and Ecosystem Partners Videos describing new features available on YouTube and PeerTube Berlin, 26 February 2026 - The Document Foundation today announced the... * LibreOffice 25.8.5 has arrived Berlin, 19 February 2026 - LibreOffice 25.8.5, the fifth update to the FOSS office suite [1] developed by volunteers for... * LibreOffice 26.2 is here: a faster, more polished office suite that you control We're pleased to announce the release of LibreOffice 26.2, the newest version of the free and open source office suite... Open Document Format LibreOffice for Education: Regaining Digital Sovereignty Every year, millions of students open a laptop and log into Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, surrendering their digital sovereignty... * UPDATED Request to the European Commission to adhere to its own guidances The European Commission has accepted our request, and starting from today - Friday March 6 - has added the Open... * ODF is just the first of the advantages of LibreOffice Comments continue to be posted on articles that refer to blog posts on OOXML and related topics, from users who... Copyright Unless otherwise specified, all text and images on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. This does not include the source code of LibreOffice, which is licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2). Trademarks LibreOffice and The Document Foundation are registered trademarks of their corresponding registered owners or are in actual use as trademarks in one or more countries. Their respective logos and icons are also subject to international copyright laws. Use thereof is explained in our Trademark Policy. Legal Information Impressum (Legal Info) Privacy Policy Privacy Tools Credits Theme: Ribbon by MyThemeShop. The Document Foundation All Rights Reserved 2025 Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Refined Magazine Pro by Candid Themes. Privacy Preference Center Options * Consent Management * Privacy Policy Consent Management Thank you for visiting our website and your interest in our services and products. As the protection of your personal data is an important concern for us, please click on the "More information" link to access our Privacy Policy page - which will open in a separate browser tab - where we explain what information we collect during your visit to our website, how it is processed, and whether or how it may be used. Once you have carefully read our Privacy Policy page, close the browser tab to return to this page and click on the "Save Preferences" button under this text to acknowledge it, close the dialogue and return to the website. We take all the necessary technical and organisational security measures to protect your personal data from loss and misuse. Your data is stored in a secure operating environment that is not accessible to the public. Privacy Policy Required I confirm to have carefully read and agreed to The Document Foundation's Privacy Policy. [Save Preferences] OK