NGI Commons General Assembly in Paris Aligns Partners for the Final Stretch

With just nine months left before the end of the project, partners of the NGI Commons initiative gathered for their latest General Assembly to review progress, coordinate final activities, and shape the initiative’s lasting impact on Europe’s digital future. The two-day General Assembly in Paris reaffirmed the importance of collaboration across the Digital Commons community to ensure European sovereignty and competitiveness.

  • NGI Commons - GA in Paris
  • NGI Commons - GA in Paris

Hosted by partner CNRS in the vibrant setting of Paris, the meeting brought together representatives from across the consortium to reflect on achievements so far and align on priorities for the final stretch. As the project approaches its closing phase, discussions focused on consolidating results, strengthening collaboration across partners, and ensuring that the work carried out over the past years continues to benefit the broader internet community.

“Europe is moving beyond traditional, state-centric models of digital sovereignty. At our Paris Assembly, the NGI Commons consortium reaffirmed that open, shared digital infrastructures are the true catalysts for European competitiveness. As we gear up for the 2026 Digital Commons Policy Summit, we are committed to delivering the strategic roadmap that ensures Open Source and Digital Commons are at the very heart of the upcoming Tech Sovereignty Package.“

Dr Monique Calisti, Coordinator of the NGI Commons initiative.

Strategic Summary

As the European Commission prepares to publish the Open Source Strategy as part of the Tech Sovereignty Package in Spring 2026, consortium partners are intensifying efforts to ensure their work aligns with and has a concrete impact on the evolving needs and expectations of a growing community. Building on this momentum, discussions focused on four strategic pillars in the final phase of the project:

  1. Defining Digital Sovereignty in the Context of the Commons: The concept of digital sovereignty is evolving beyond traditional state-centric models. To ensure final recommendations are impactful, partners must strategically position the “Digital Commons” narrative within this broader discussion. Recognising that sovereignty can be state-driven, corporate, or commons-based, the consensus is that partners must clearly articulate Commons Digital Sovereignty – built on digital public goods like FOSS and community networks – as a complementary and necessary pillar of Europe’s overall strategic autonomy.
  2. Open Source as the Foundation of Digital Commons: In light of the EC’s upcoming Open Source Strategy, the NGI Commons project is uniquely positioned to influence the European agenda. Partners agreed to strongly emphasise that open licensing is the foundation for the multiplier effect of public funding. Furthermore, consortium partners must advocate for policies that shift the focus from funding individual open-source project outputs towards sustaining shared digital infrastructures and knowledge commons.
  3. Progress on Key Project Deliverables: The project is officially in its final implementation phase, successfully submitting critical deliverables that shape policy recommendations:
    • D1.3 (Impact of NGI funding): Highlights that the low administrative burden of NGI micro-grants is highly appreciated and maximises the impact of public spending, though long-term sustainability remains a challenge and the impact at industrial scale is limited.
    • D3.3 (Governance frameworks): Utilises a “bundle of rights” framework to analyse roles within Digital Commons, emphasising the need to include venture entities (non-profits, foundations) in governance models.
    • D3.4 (Policy building blocks): Identifies actionable policy measures to support the Strategic Agenda’s objectives regarding the Digital Commons.
  4. Gearing Up for the Digital Commons Policy Summit 2026: Following the success of the 2025 edition, preparations for the 2026 edition of the Digital Commons Policy Summit are actively underway. This event will serve as the cornerstone of NGI Commons’ exploitation strategy. Partners are exploring high-impact formats and co-location with other relevant policy-driven event. The core focus will be evaluating progress on the European Digital Commons Roadmap, accelerating adoption through public procurement, and presenting the final NGI Commons results to key policymakers.

As NGI Commons enters its final phase, the Paris General Assembly, featuring special guests Emma Ghariani, Head of the Open Source and Digital Commons Division at the French Prime Minister’s Services, a representative of the European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC), and Francesca Musiani, Director of the Center for Internet and Society at CNRS, reaffirmed the consortium’s shared commitment to delivering meaningful results and leaving a lasting legacy for Europe’s future Open Source or Digital Commons initiatives and the development of the Open Internet Stack. 🚀