BERLIN, Germany – More than a year ago, US President Donald Trump’s second election win sparked a surge in discussions about tech sovereignty in Europe. But while EU leaders have spent the time since talking the talk, real moves to decouple from US tech are still few and far between.
That’s not for a lack of vocal support. The Commission named a whole new executive vice-president in charge of the topic, Henna Virkkunen. Meanwhile, representatives of EU capitals gathered in Berlin today are working on a document signalling their “shared ambition to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty in an open manner,” whatever that may mean.
But tech sovereignty proponents are still waiting for the firm political shift they’ve been calling for.
A key question is whether EU rules governing the procurement of goods and services by public authorities should provide a deliberate boost to European providers with a “Buy European” mandate.
In July last year, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted to introduce this preference in “certain strategic sectors.” France and Germany agreed on similar wording in August, as they announced the plan for today’s sovereignty summit taking place in Berlin.
Here, EU governments are expected to sign an Austrian-led declaration which, according to a draft obtained by Euractiv, will mention “targeted use” of public procurement.
However, despite all these high-level signals, it remains unclear whether and how public authorities across the EU will be encouraged to purchase European tech. The Commission recently announced it’ll present proposals for cloud and procurement laws in the first half of 2026. That may provide a more definitive answer.
In the meantime, some European tech companies are not waiting for policymakers to fire the starting gun.
Frank Karlitschek, CEO of Nextcloud – a German company building a work suite comparable to Microsoft’s Office – told Euractiv that Nextcloud will grow the use of its services by 50% this year, adding that he expects the same rate of expansion next year, too.
Nextcloud is still a small company, though, employing just 150 people – a far cry from Microsoft’s 200,000+.
Karlitschek argues that Brussels has yet to follow through on its promises to support European tech. Still, he said his profitable company is doing well, driven by demand from public administrations across Europe, universities, large companies, and also from the defence sector, which has special privacy requirements.
Nextcloud has pledged to invest a quarter of a billion euros in digital sovereignty over the next five years, alongside larger announcements from French and German data centre companies in the run-up to today’s summit.
Expect more such investments to be unwrapped at the summit later today.
(nl, cm)
