The 2026 Interoperable Europe Agenda: priorities to improve cross-border interoperability

The Interoperable Europe Board, working closely with the Interoperable Europe Community, has adopted the Interoperable Europe Agenda for 2026. 

Established under the Interoperable Europe Act, the Agenda is the EU’s main instrument for setting priorities that enhance the cross-border exchange of data between public administrations and accelerate the digital transformation of the public sector. 

The strategic actions set out in the Agenda aim to support Member States and EU institutions in working together in a coordinated way to improve cross-border interoperability of public services in the EU.

For 2026, the Agenda establishes seven priorities, categorised across four elements, each accompanied by concrete actions.

The 2026 Agenda places particular emphasis on defining and scaling interoperability solutions that will shape the EU’s future digital public service landscape. 

Interoperability solutions are reusable assets (such as software, services, core vocabularies, architecture, frameworks, guidelines, licence, specifications and standards) that enable better cross-border interoperability between public administrations in the EU.

The Agenda brings together two key priorities: defining a shared understanding of what Europe’s future interoperability landscape should look like, and mapping and promoting those solutions that already offer strong cross-border value. 

A central role in these efforts is the action of labelling solutions as Interoperable Europe Solutions, which highlights high-quality, mature, and reusable interoperability solutions for building better interoperable digital public services. The first two solutions that were announced in December – Core Vocabularies and DCAT-AP – already illustrate how common semantic and data specifications can simplify cross-border data exchange and make public sector data easier to discover and reuse.

Another important action as part of these two priorities will be to map recommended and high-potential solutions against a high-level interoperability architecture logic, using the European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA) as a starting point. This will be a key focus for the Permanent Working Group of the Board this year, ensuring also that the next Agenda update aligns with the emerging common architecture vision. 

Other related actions include:

- organising peer learning sessions on interoperability solutions to detect joint needs and share inspiring practices,

- identifying gaps for potential new solutions,

- as well as the establishment of a semantic registry that links European and national semantic models.

Actions will also support improving the clear identification of public entities encouraging the implementation of established semantic solutions (such as CPSV-AP) in EU policies and in Member States. Training on design principles on API (interfaces that enable different services and applications to communicate and share information) and their application will also support administrations in implementing interoperable-by-design services.

The Interoperable Europe Agenda also aims to contribute to EU digital sovereignty. It promotes shared reusable European solutions and open standards, which helps to reduce technological fragmentation and dependency on isolated or proprietary approaches. 

In this context, actions for 2026 include promoting the EU Open Source solutions catalogue as a centralised, Commission-managed repository of reusable open-source solutions developed by and for EU institutions, Member States, and public bodies. It also foresees the development of guidelines for sharing and reusing interoperability solutions and best practices, which is also a key element of the Interoperable Europe Act.

The Digital Europe Work Programme 2025-2027 will support a Multi-Country Project on innovative and connected public administrations. This action aims to bring together Member States and countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme to jointly identify needs, deploy and develop interoperability solutions for cross-border digital public services. 

These projects provide a concrete opportunity to scale Interoperable Europe solutions, support their cross-border reuse, and build shared infrastructures aligned with the Agenda’s priorities. Thus it will support the implementation of the Interoperable Europe Act, and the Interoperable Europe Agenda itself. The call is now open and closes on 19 May 2026.

The 2026 Interoperable Europe Agenda is the first annual cycle under the Interoperable Europe Act. Its priorities were identified through consultations with the Member States via the Permanent Working Group of the Board, and the Interoperable Europe Community. The Agenda will be updated annually, ensuring that emerging needs, technologies and lessons learned from implementation are reflected in future cycles.

The full document of the Agenda is available in the document section of the Interoperable Europe Board page on the Portal.