EU development and stewardship
The ambition is for the core tools to be fully developed in the EU, with EU-based governance, maintenance, and infrastructure. The precise contributor and provenance policy must be agreed openly.
The purpose behind the tools
Own the foundations.
Open the possibilities.
Europe’s digital independence starts beneath the applications. We want to make the tools that turn ideas into executable software a shared European capability.
Early-stage initiativeOur mission
A complete low-level toolchain.
Developed in the EU. Independently buildable.
Software sovereignty is more than knowing where a server is located. It means having the source, expertise, rights, and infrastructure to maintain the tools on which everything else depends.
low-level.eu is an initiative to develop that capability. This website describes the intended direction; it does not announce a finished toolchain, confirmed partners, or EU institutional backing.
01 / Our principles
Open by conviction.
Independent by design.
Four commitments guide the work ahead. Each must become a concrete, testable property of the toolchain.
Open source, open decisions
Source code, specifications, design discussions, and dependency records should be public. Licensing and the legal structure are decisions for the initiative to establish, not claims of a completed project.
Verifiable independence
A release should be buildable from documented, EU-maintained sources without access to non-EU registries, proprietary services, or external build infrastructure. Bootstrap dependencies must be accounted for, too.
Interoperability over isolation
Support open standards and familiar interfaces. Independence means being able to maintain and build the stack ourselves—not preventing others from using it or learning from global research.
02 / The road ahead
Ambitious in purpose.
Deliberate in progress.
A proposed sequence, not a delivery promise. Milestones will depend on contributors, technical validation, and sustainable support.
- 01
STARTING POINT
Define the foundations
Agree on scope, map the full dependency chain, and establish open contribution and governance principles.
- 02
PROPOSED
Prove the smallest stack
Design a minimal compiler, assembler, and linker pipeline. Document how it can be bootstrapped and independently verified.
- 03
PROPOSED
Make independence reproducible
Bring build infrastructure, source archives, testing, and release signing under EU-based stewardship. Verify a disconnected build.
- 04
LONG-TERM GOAL
Sustain a complete toolchain
Expand language and target support, invest in maintainers, and build a durable, interoperable developer ecosystem.
03 / A few important questions
Clear about
where we stand.
Is there a toolchain I can download today?
No. This is an early-stage initiative. The components and roadmap describe proposed work, not available releases. Establishing scope and a verifiable dependency inventory comes first.
Does EU independence mean rejecting open source?
No. Open source is central to the idea. Independence requires more than access to a repository: it requires the ability to develop, audit, bootstrap, and sustain the whole stack without an external source or service dependency. Any reused code would need transparent provenance and a policy consistent with that goal.
Does this website itself use only EU-developed software?
No. This website uses Nuxt and its open-source dependencies, which have international provenance. The toolchain’s EU-only development goal is a future requirement, not a claim about this website or an achieved certification.
Is low-level.eu an official EU project?
No. It is an independent initiative. No institutional affiliation, funding, or endorsement is implied. Governance, organisational structure, and funding arrangements still need to be established.
Help shape the direction
Strong foundations need many hands.
Bring your experience to the questions that matter.