Until relatively recently, digital sovereignty wasn’t at the top of the European political or regulatory agenda. Yes, it was seen as an important issue, but five years ago it didn’t have anything like the profile or sense of urgency we see today.
Indeed, momentum behind the creation of sovereign EU cloud infrastructure is accelerating rapidly, with November’s Franco-German summit the latest effort to “further develop key aspects of an independent, secure and innovation-friendly digital future for Europe.”
General Manager for EMEA North at SUSE.
At the same time, European stakeholders across public and private sectors are reassessing their dependence on external providers, particularly the US hyperscalers, and the long-term implications for security, governance and competitiveness.
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The core issues have become so pressing that the continent now faces a pivotal moment in deciding how it wants to manage and govern its digital future.
The current situation
How did we arrive at this point? European organizations have spent years relying on large non-EU technology providers. To an extent, this is understandable.
The likes of AWS, Microsoft and Google have compelling infrastructure propositions which have revolutionized the cloud industry and brought massive benefits to customers wherever they are.
What most European customers also did was assume that local hosting, contractual safeguards and regional compliance measures were sufficient to meet sovereignty requirements.
That perspective was undermined when Microsoft confirmed to the French Senate earlier this year that data stored within the EU may still fall under foreign jurisdiction, calling into question the residency-based model that many had trusted.
In particular, US legal mandates such as the CLOUD Act can, in fact, override geographic boundaries, raising concerns about how much control European organizations truly retain.
Adding to the problem is that the way organizations manage their data and consume cloud services has also evolved. Enterprise environments are now more fragmented than ever before, with unstructured data now dominating and spreading across clouds, applications and jurisdictions in ways that are difficult to track.
Hybrid and multi-cloud adoption has accelerated this complexity, reducing visibility into where data sits and which legal frameworks govern it.
The result is that digital sovereignty has morphed from a conceptual aspiration into an operational and strategic concern. Organizations can no longer kick the can down the road.
Building for the future
Clearly, the current position is not sustainable. According to a 2025 industry report, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud together hold about 70% of the European infrastructure cloud market, while all European-headquartered cloud providers combined account for roughly 15%.
From a sovereignty perspective, Europe needs digital solutions that are both localized and scalable, rather than niche or limited-adoption offerings. Providers operating in Europe are expected to build technologies that are competitive with global alternatives while still meeting sovereignty expectations.
However, this isn’t just a matter of unlocking infrastructure investment. Sovereignty cannot be achieved in isolation; collaboration across the European technology ecosystem is essential, including partnerships between organizations that may not have traditionally worked together.
Our recent partnership with evroc, is a good example, as we join forces to deliver secure, sovereign European cloud infrastructure.
For example, customers need better visibility of the European options available to them, as many remain unaware of the strength and maturity of home-grown solutions
Sovereignty also requires the ability to evaluate providers objectively, using clear criteria that reflect jurisdictional control, supply-chain transparency and operational independence.
On a practical level, the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework serves as an essential reference point, providing organizations with a structured way to assess levels of sovereignty and make more informed decisions.
Ideally, this will also help create a more level playing field in cloud procurement, ensuring that suitable European providers are considered rather than overlooked by default.
Looking ahead, maintaining positive momentum will be vital. Notwithstanding the emergence of new sovereign cloud infrastructure, organizations cannot achieve meaningful sovereignty unless they retain dependable control over their data.
The core challenge is not just where data is stored but whether organizations can govern how it is used, moved and accessed across different environments.
In this context, it is essential to implement tools and processes that enable them to enforce policies such as residency, access controls and retention rules in a precise and verifiable manner.
This approach places sovereignty as much in the realm of governance and ongoing operational discipline as in infrastructure investment or regulatory reform. In the years ahead, Europe’s ability to strengthen sovereignty will hinge on whether organizations can guarantee control over their data throughout its lifecycle, not just at the point of storage.
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