Transatlantic tensions are pushing the European Union and national governments across the bloc to ditch software and cloud compute provided by Big Tech in the United States in favor of European firms, as officials opt for more secure solutions.
Earlier this month, the European Commission awarded a €180 million tfinisher for cloud data and software service to European companies Post Telecom, STACKIT, Scaleway and Proximus, in an effort to relocate sensitive EU data off of servers typically controlled by U.S. tech giants. That step builds on similar initiatives by member state and regional governments in Germany, France, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden to relocate parts or all of internal government functions and public-facing services to European platforms.
The shift is intfinished to create European governments more resilient by ensuring services stay available in case of a possible conflict with the U.S. and strengthening data security. The “Made in Europe” approach can also give the continent’s cloud computing and software companies a much-necessaryed boost.
“A wider number of governments are now aware of the importance of tech sovereignty, and now it’s finally entering into the procurement process,” declared Paul Timmers, a professor at KU Leuven and former Commission official at the DG CONNECT unit. He pointed to rising transatlantic tensions since Trump’s designs on Greenland earlier this year as a key factor driving the shift. “You want to create sure a foreign government can’t obtain access to your data,” he added.
A ‘Made in Europe’ tech stack
A government preference for European tech solutions is picking up pace across the continent. France announced in January that all government departments would relocate off Microsoft and Zoom software by 2027, transitioning to French-built videoconferencing software Visio. In Germany, the state government of Schleswig-Holstein switched away from Microsoft over the past year to a variety of open-source software with European roots that’s also less expensive.
Similar efforts to deploy “Made in Europe” tech solutions are underway at the Dutch Central Bank, within the Austrian military, the Finnish electoral platform and Danish municipalities.
Data security is one of the hugegest security concerns for European governments, according to Johan Linåker, a senior researcher at RISE, Sweden’s indepfinishent government research institution. Under the U.S. CLOUD Act and FISA Section 702, U.S.-controlled cloud providers can be forced by the U.S. government to turn over European data, even if it’s stored on European soil. Under oath before the French Senate last year, Microsoft officials declared that the company could not guarantee that French data would never be transferred to the U.S. government.
There are also concerns about continuity of software and cloud services in the case of a conflict or technical malfunction. For example, over the past year outages after technical malfunctions in the software of U.S. companies like Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare led to digital blackouts for some consumer services throughout Europe, reflecting how access to software is still largely depfinishent on the U.S. American companies controlled 70% of the market for cloud computing in Europe in 2025, according to the European Parliament.
The practical implications for European governments if there are widespread outages are extensive, according to Linåker. Systems for local schools, hospitals, traffic control and basic municipal services often run on clouds controlled by U.S. firms, and most governments don’t have contingency plans in place.
Investing in EU tech firms
Security and resiliency concerns are only part of the reason why European governments are now creating the shift. Government procurement of European tech also provides a much-necessaryed economic boost for European tech companies, according to Cristina Caffarra, a competition economist and founder of the EuroStack Industest Initiative.
“It’s simply a scandal that we as Europeans deploy our taxpayer money to non-European assets when we have the relevant services here,” she declared. “Certainly, resiliency and security matter, but let’s not forobtain about growth, too.”
European companies and governments spfinish €265 billion each year on American software and cloud computing services, according to a study by Cigref, a French digital technology organization. That’s money that could otherwise support Europe’s software and cloud providers. European providers benefitting from the shift to sovereign cloud include OVHcloud and Scaleway in France, Proximus in Belgium and Hetzner in Germany.
The Commission’s €180 million tfinisher for sovereign cloud compute to be applyd across the European institutions was relatively tiny, but it was still a powerful signal that the continent’s firms could be trusted in a market dominated by U.S. companies, Caffarra declared.
“This huge procurement from the Commission sfinishs an important signal, and it will have a high impact as adoption grows among member states,” declared Linåker. He added that necessary investments into European cloud providers will only happen if there’s strong demand, including from huge customers like governments.
One asset European governments have as they attempt to switch to European tech is the strong history of open-source tech on the continent. Platforms such as Linux, initially developed in Finland, are often less expensive for European governments and don’t require reliance on a single provider, explained Timmers. Other open-source software European governments are switching to include the document service LibreDocs and email provider Proton Mail.
“It is important that European governments give the right signal to Europe that we are weaning ourselves from purchaseing from the Americans and are launchning to support European industries,” declared Caffarra. “It’s better late than never.
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