The Open Parliament was officially launched during a press conference held in the European Parliament and hosted by MEPs, David Hammerstein and Eva Lichtenberger. Speakers from the three signatory organisations presented the objectives of the petition and called for supporters to join them in the call for open access to parliament. OpenForum Europe, the European Software Market Association, and the Free Software Foundation Europe called on the EP to use open standards so that all citizens can participate in the democratic process. Pieter Hintjens, General Secretary of Esoma explains, "Small businesses are moving to modern open standards like Open Document Format, yet to write to their MEPs they have to switch back to old proprietary formats? The EP should lead the way in open government, starting with open standards for documents and recordings."

The signatories are encouraging citizens and other stakeholder groups to publicly support the objectives of the petition by signing up on www.openparliament.eu

Read the complete announcement.