In an effort to practise digital sovereignty and reduce being dependent on (US) Big Tech, the EU is very, very slowly looking for secure digital alternatives, on its own soil. While the EU acknowledges this threat, it is not a new one, really. The classic example being Europe’s overdependence on Microsoft, and being turned into a Software Colony as a result. Even more so when Europe increasingly migrated its data to US-based cloud services for more than a decade ago now.

How come? Well, out of sheer convenience and complacency, rather than diligence, frankly. Our governments were unwilling to invest in and retain knowledge and skills inside its own borders, or even within EU borders. IT is typically viewed as a nuisance. It was more popular (fashionable even) moving as soon as possible to Big Tech clouds, just as everybody else. No point in reinventing the wheel. If only not to deal with increasing IT demands yourself.

With the US being the first to offer these services, they faced little competition and soon dominated the market. Rapidly developing and maturing their services, Big Tech is currently best-of-breed and in turn charges a premium. While not charging for data ingress, it does incur data egress fees, intentionally making it harder for subscribers to lift and shift elsewhere. In other words, locking-in customers unless they cough up.

We never really doubted the US government, being a close ally. So why worry now? Remember during the US elections last year when Trump said he would encourage Russia to 'do whatever the hell they want' to any NATO country not meeting their spending commitments (>=2% of GDP)?

This left a bad taste in the mouth of many Europeans, but then we soon realised:

  • So far Ukraine (and Europe) have leant heavily on US support fighting Russia;

  • Europe has not been meeting its 2% GDP NATO spending commitments for years;

  • The US made it very clear it wants to leave Europe to fend for itself, worrying more about China and the Indo-Pacific region.

This was a wake-up call for the EU. At least from a military perspective.

Then Trump won the presidency, and a whole new geopolitical mess ensued. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but to name a few key issues, so far we’ve seen:

All of which is worrying, which is why, during the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, allies agreed to rank up their spending commitments to 5% of GDP by 2035. Currently, practically all NATO members are meeting their 2% GDP spending commitments, with Poland and Lithuania already spending 4% or more.

Back to digital sovereignty. Until fairly recently (as demonstrated earlier this year at the International Criminal Court, for example) overdependence hasn’t gotten the attention of EU governments and policy makers it deserves. Here in The Netherlands, most of our public sector (including our military) is overly dependent on Microsoft and US-based cloud services. While slowly changing, it will take years to reverse this trend, if at all.

In short, The Netherlands (and most of Europe) outsourced its digital nervous system to alien surgeons, and only now wonders if the scalpel might turn against it. I actually think we could use several more disruptions like at the ICC to increase our sense of urgency. Perhaps a major outage, or severe security breach, a humiliating data leak. Or even Trump himself having a bad day and pulling the plug on parts of our vital services. Certainly not things I wish for, but it might be the only way to increase awareness and act upon it.