Mailing the story:

Plucky little Belgium. Always the scene of upheavals across the centuries, and sometimes the place where gigantic battles have been fought. Now this David amongst European countries could be risking the wrath of that Goliath of software companies, Microsoft. The Belgian government's decision to use only open formats for exchanging documents is pure common sense. The whole reason for having standards bodies and the standards they produce is to guarantee compatibility and stability above individual companies' commercial concerns. Millions of Euros of taxpayers' money is spent funding bodies like ISO, so it would be foolish to then ignore the work they do.