Digital sovereignty in Europe: what still lies ahead

Over the past months, digital sovereignty has moved from a specialist debate to front-page coverage in major European newspapers. The recent coverage, including long-form articles by NRC in the Netherlands, Handelsblatt in Germany, and The Register in the UK, offers a useful snapshot of where Europe stands today but also captures a turning point.

The facts on the ground

Journalists describe significant shifts in Europe. Dependence on US Big Tech is now widely recognized as a political and economic risk. The NRC piece frames Europe as a “digital colony”; Handelsblatt shows how this concern has reached boardrooms and ministries, accelerated by geopolitical developments in Washington. The Register states that “Europe gets serious.”

At the same time, while that awareness has translated into pressure, it has not yet turned into structural change. Governments talk about sovereignty, companies reassess risk, and demand for European alternatives is rising. At Nextcloud, interest has certainly increased sharply since the change of administration in the US, and other sovereign technology providers also see growth.

Moreover, Big Tech has responded with “sovereignty” branding. This framing is rightly exposed by many journalists as sovereignty washing by hyperscalers repositioning existing offerings with some tweaks as “sovereign” without changing ownership, control, or legal dependency.

The core issue is demand, not regulation. NRC in particular is clear on this point: Europe will not build a digital ecosystem by rules alone. If procurement keeps defaulting to Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, dependency will persist.

Three reasons why the story is not over

Many articles end on a skeptical note. NRC quotes Dutch thought leader Bert Hubert:

“EuroStack faces the impossible task of connecting customers who don’t want to buy with suppliers who don’t want to build.”

German business newspaper Handelsblatt notes that, as hyperscalers still offer unmatched integration and reach, most CIOs feel the perceived risk of switching outweighs geopolitical concerns – at least for now. The product gap, especially the fragmented European offerings, was also noted by the author of The Register in a more recent article.

Yet, reality is also that the momentum is real and impactful. We see three reasons to be more optimistic.

1. Alternatives exist

First, European suppliers have built viable alternatives

Nextcloud, Proton, and other European sovereign solutions are not theoretical projects. They operate at scale, grow year over year, and are used by public administrations, courts, ministries, and enterprises — including in politically sensitive environments such as the International Criminal Court and large-scale deployments like hundreds of thousands of government employees at multiple French ministries.

These organizations did not wait for perfect market conditions. They set clear goals, accepted friction, and built despite uncertainty. This already contradicts the idea that “Customers don’t want to buy” and “suppliers don’t want to build.”

2. Speed

Second, change is happening as fast or faster than past benchmarks.

European tech discussions often underestimate time horizons. Airbus took decades to become a serious competitor. Migration projects from on-premises Microsoft to the cloud in the public sector typically take 4-5 years.

By comparison, the political, market, and media momentum around digital sovereignty and EuroStack has developed remarkably quickly. That does not guarantee success, but it does show that inertia is not the only force at work.

3. Procurement

The real blocker is still procurement behavior. On this point, the articles circle the issue but do not fully confront it.

Public institutions and large organizations continue to:

• Renew long-term contracts with dominant vendors
• Treat migration risk as higher than dependency risk
• Ignore European options even where they already meet functional needs

For example, while perhaps some workloads require advanced functionality from hyperscalers, many public sector applications just need a bare virtual machine. That is a mature offering, even the most basic cloud hosting in Europe offers. Yet the public sector pays the large price premium AND gives up their sovereignty, by default.

As long as this continues, European suppliers will remain fragmented and undercapitalized — regardless of how strong the political rhetoric becomes.

This is not a technology problem. It is about incentives and strategic industrial policy. To quote The Register:

“For Europe, the question is no longer whether it should pursue digital sovereignty, but whether it has the collective will to stop talking, start building, and, most importantly, distinguish real autonomy from clever marketing.”

What EuroStack still needs to do

EuroStack was never meant to be a vendor alliance for lobbying or a think tank. Its role is narrower and more specific:

• Reduce fragmentation by pushing interoperability and shared standards
• Align builders who are willing to build with buyers who are willing to move
• Expose where “lack of alternatives” is, in practice, a lack of willingness to change

That work is incomplete, but it is not futile. To quote several Dutch public sector employees when asked about their thoughts on what to expect in the coming year: The train has left the station.

In their opinion, change is coming. It takes time to become visible, but the groundwork is in progress.

At Nextcloud, we can confirm this: there have been several high-profile roll-outs of Nextcloud and other sovereign technologies in 2025, from various French and Austrian ministries to the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. But those are all the results of projects that started years ago, as the public sector wheels grind slowly, but certainly.

A more realistic conclusion

Digital sovereignty is not about replacing Microsoft or Google overnight. Handelsblatt is right on that. The goal is freedom of action: the ability to switch, negotiate, and operate without geopolitical single points of failure.

Europe is late. Europe is fragmented. And Europe still defaults to convenience far too often.

But the developments described in NRC, Handelsblatt, and other leading media show something important: the question is no longer whether dependency is a problem. It is those who are willing to act on that insight. And wheels have been set in motion in many places already.

From our perspective, the story is entering its most decisive phase, and not its epilogue.