The Document Foundation (TDF), the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice, welcomes the inclusion of the Open Document Format (ODF) as a mandated standard format in Germany’s Deutschland-Stack, the federal government’s sovereign digital infrastructure framework for all public administrations.
The Stack, published by the German Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernisation (Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung), establishes the technical standards for a shared, interoperable and sovereign digital infrastructure serving all Germany’s public administrations. Under the framework’s “Semantic Technologies and Real-Time Analytics” pillar, ODF and PDF/UA are explicitly named as the two mandated document formats, to the exclusion of proprietary alternatives.
“This is not a recommendation or a preference, it is a mandate,” said Florian Effenberger, Executive Director of The Document Foundation. “Germany’s decision to anchor ODF at the heart of its national sovereign stack confirms what we have argued for years: open, vendor-neutral document formats are not a niche concern for some technology specialists and FOSS advocates. They are a fundamental infrastructure for democratic, interoperable and sovereign public administrations.”
The Deutschland-Stack is grounded in a set of principles that align with TDF’s long-standing advocacy positions. The framework adopts a “Made in EU first” principle, requires open interfaces and local data storage, mandate open source development where proprietary ownership would otherwise apply, and explicitly aims to reduce vendor lock-in effects. The Stack draws on decisions by the Digital Ministers’ Conference (Digitalministerkonferenz), the Federal Cabinet, and the Prime Ministers’ Conference, and targets concrete delivery of infrastructure components for all levels of government by 2028.
ODF’s inclusion in this framework is no accident. It reflects a consistent direction in European digital policy, from the EIF (European Interoperability Framework) to the CRA (Cyber Resilience Act), that recognises open standards as a prerequisite for interoperability, sovereignty and long-term public value.
“The Stack also calls for reducing lock-in effects and for a European cloud infrastructure built on open standards,” added Florian Effenberger. “ODF’s mandate is the document-layer expression of that principle, as you cannot claim digital sovereignty while allowing your documents to be locked in proprietary formats controlled by a single vendor.”
For the last 20 years, the argument used by proprietary software vendors against ODF adoption in public administrations has been based on a wrong claim. In fact, transitioning away from proprietary formats would reduce the risks of content loss, workflow disruption and incompatibility. The Deutschland-Stack’s mandate confirms this fact, and by naming ODF as the standard, implicitly recognises that the long-term risk for digital sovereignty is represented by proprietary lock-in and not by open standards.
This position is consistent with TDF’s submission to the EU Commission, in which TDF argued that ODF adoption does not introduce content-loss risk, and that the burden of proof must rest with those advocating for OOXML Transitional, a format defined by its own specification as provisional.
Deutschland-Stack text: https://deutschland-stack.gov.de/gesamtbild/ (in German)
