The Netherlands Cabinet will start the introduction of ODF as the format for reading, writing, exchange, publication and receipt of documents internally and with subsidiary government bodies and citizens and businesses. As such, the Netherlands remains in step with international developments. Denmark and Belgium (international leaders) have also chosen to introduce ODF for governmental applications. ODF is therefore currently available alongside and in addition to other, already-used, file formats (such as DOC and PDF) and any new future open standards.

The objective for ODF is that Central Government services will support ODF from April 2008, along with the current file formats, for the reading, writing and exchange of documents. Subsidiary government bodies and general institutions will follow as soon as possible, at the latest by December 2008. The envisaged objective is that in 2015 government organisations will use open document standards only for electronic processing and exchange of documents.

Read "The Netherlands in Open Communications" action plan.