The Dutch Government wants to increase the use of open standards and open source in some of its key IT projects, minister for Foreign Trade Frank Heemkskerk said on 3 December 2009. "There is not enough progress in the uptake of this type of software", said Heemskerk. "We need more perseverance. Using this type of software should be a social objective of public administrations." Heemskerk announced he would approach the other ministers in the cabinet to urge them to adopt open standards and open source applications. "I will chase my colleagues responsible for health care, for social security and for education." He also wants software suppliers to adapt to using open standards. "No matter the business models of these vendors, they need to be more involved in this."

...The minister's announcements were made during the presentation by the Dutch resource centre on open standards and open source, NOiV, of its annual progress monitor. In 2009, all public administrations have begun increasing their use of these types of software, says NOiV. On the desktop, for instance, open source is used by 70 percent of the ministries and 26 percent of all municipalities. The use of the open document format ODF is now supported by all ministries and 59 percent of the municipalities, said NOiV's analist Jaap Korpel.