How the Netherlands can gain influence in the European digital transition

Why this matters now

Important decisions are currently being taken in Brussels on the digital building blocks of our public services. These include collaboration without barriers (interoperability), data spaces, AI standards, cloud services and cybersecurity. By actively contributing to the development of standards, we safeguard public values and prevent that systems have to be redesigned at a later stage.

At the same time, we see international technology companies gaining increasing influence in standardisation forums. Without a well organised public counterweight, the agenda can easily shift.

Interactive network map: hover over an organisation for more information and click to view its direct network. Use the legend to show or hide categories. The network consists of organisations connected to the IBDS EU Data Network or the Network of Data Systems (pink), other organisations (blue), and the European bodies they are linked to (black). The size of the nodes indicates the number of connections within the collected data.

The Netherlands in European forums: broadly present, but thinly connected

Our network analysis shows that Dutch organisations are active in many European working groups, expert groups and standardisation forums across many domains. This gives us early insight into new developments and a seat at the table.

However, coherence is lacking. Ministries and sectors such as mobility and healthcare often operate independently. Respondents describe the situation as “every organisation for itself”.

We see this pattern within the IBDS network as well: collaboration is concentrated around a few central hubs, such as the Centre of Excellence for Data Sharing & Cloud (CoE DSC), Forum Standardisation and Geonovum. Thematic clusters (e.g. data spaces, semantics, cybersecurity) are only weakly interconnected. The result is a network that appears large, but is less cohesive as expected based on the numbers.

What holds us back

The low intensity of collaboration has structural causes: limited capacity, loss of knowledge due to staff rotation and reliance on external parties, and mandates that are not always clear. In addition, there is little room for coordination. Without a shared overview and light national coordination, participation often remains reactive and influence unpredictable.

Opportunities for leverage

The Netherlands is strongly involved in European forums around standardisation, such as the Multi-Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardisation, public private partnerships in digitalisation (e.g. ADRA), and joint initiatives such as the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC). This offers opportunities to increase public sector influence, but requires pooling expertise and organising coherence.

Generic EU building blocks for data sharing (e.g. SIMPL, OOTS, SEMIC, EOSC) also provide concrete entry points to link Dutch use cases to European architectures. This delivers visibility, reusable assets (profiles, reference architectures) and faster adoption.

What this means for public organisations in the Netherlands

A stronger and better connected Dutch position in European forums helps public organisations to:

• Work with clear and usable standards;
• Make digital services more reliable and efficient;
• Make better use of investments in data infrastructure;
• Reduce dependence on large (foreign) market players.