Europe's strategic vulnerability: why digital sovereignty can no longer be ignored

The scale of the challenge

The numbers tell a sobering story. According to recent European Parliament analysis, the EU relies on non-EU countries for over 80% of digital products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property. In the Netherlands alone, 67% of the 16,500 domains examined are tied to American cloud services, with Microsoft commanding a 49% market share. From email to electronic patient records, from Teams meetings to hosting critical government websites, the dependency runs deep and wide.

This concentration isn't just about market share, it creates genuine security and sovereignty risks. As experts from the Gesellschaft für Informatik warn, the 2025 US national security strategy explicitly defines digital infrastructures as national security assets. When geopolitical tensions rise, this dependency becomes a strategic liability.

When sovereignty became urgent

Recent events have transformed digital sovereignty from a theoretical concern into an immediate priority. When the International Criminal Court in The Hague faced American sanctions, staff suddenly lost access to their own systems and data. One judge described it starkly: "Being on the sanctions list means you're thrown back to the 1990s."

Under the US CLOUD Act, American intelligence and law enforcement agencies can compel access to data held by US companies, regardless of where that data is physically stored. Microsoft reported that these agencies requested such access 57 times in the second half of 2024 alone, five of those requests concerned business data.

For organisations handling business-critical data or personal information of EU citizens, this creates an impossible contradiction: how can you comply with European privacy legislation when your data effectively falls under American jurisdiction?

The problem with 'sovereign washing'

The American hyperscalers have responded to European sovereignty concerns with a flurry of 'sovereign cloud' offerings. AWS announced a €7.8 billion European Sovereign Cloud. Google opened a Sovereign Cloud Hub in Munich. Microsoft launched comprehensive 'sovereign solutions' with European operations.

Critics have coined a term for these initiatives: 'sovereignty washing.' The fundamental problem remains unchanged: these are still American companies, subject to American law. As computer scientists note, final technological control stays in the US regardless of where data centres are located or who operates them locally.

The European Parliament's resolution explicitly addresses this, condemning what it calls makeshift solutions that fail to address the core issue. A company subject to extraterritorial American laws cannot provide genuine sovereignty for Europe.

Open source vs. proprietary: the sovereignty divide

The debate over digital sovereignty highlights a crucial distinction between two fundamentally different approaches to cloud infrastructure:

Proprietary hyperscaler clouds (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud)

• Closed, proprietary systems with vendor lock-in by design

• Subject to US legislation (CLOUD Act, FISA) regardless of data location

• Opaque operations; you can't inspect what happens to your data

• Control ultimately resides with the parent company in the US

• High switching costs due to proprietary APIs and services

• 'Sovereignty' offerings that don't change fundamental jurisdictional issues

Open-source European cloud providers

• Built on transparent, open-source technologies like OpenStack

• Fully compliant with GDPR and European legal frameworks

• European ownership and operation, exclusively subject to EU law

• Complete visibility into the technology stack

• Standards-based interoperability enabling workload portability

• Genuine sovereignty through jurisdictional independence

The difference isn't technical: it's about control, transparency, and legal jurisdiction. Open-source infrastructure enables genuine sovereignty because the technology itself can be inspected, modified, and operated independently. You're not dependent on a single vendor's proprietary system that could be instrumentalised as a geopolitical lever.

The European response is gathering momentum

The shift is accelerating rapidly. Since early 2025, European email services have reported nearly tripling their new customer numbers. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is replacing Microsoft products with open-source alternatives for 30,000 civil servants. Five Dutch universities are experimenting with sovereignty solutions. The Belgian government has designated digital sovereignty as a top priority.

The EU Parliament's resolution calls for a fundamental reorientation: mandatory preference for European alternatives in public procurement, a proposed €10 billion European Sovereign Tech Fund, and Public Money, Public Code principles to reduce vendor dependency. These aren't aspirations—they're creating a market pull for genuine European cloud solutions.

What true cloud sovereignty looks like

Achieving digital sovereignty doesn't require revolutionary overnight change. It requires a strategic, phased approach:

1. Understand your current position
Map where your critical data resides, who has access, and under which legal regime it falls.

2. Prioritise based on risk
Business-critical systems and sensitive data should migrate to sovereign infrastructure first.

3. Choose genuinely European providers
Look for providers that are European-owned, operate under EU law, and use open-source technologies.

4. Ensure workload portability
Avoid new forms of vendor lock-in, choose solutions based on open standards.

5. Plan for compliance
GDPR, NIS2, DORA, and emerging regulations all favour European sovereign infrastructure.

Cyso Cloud: Dutch and German sovereign infrastructure

Cyso Cloud provides organisations with a pragmatic path to digital sovereignty. With data centres in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, we operate entirely within European jurisdiction and under European law. Our infrastructure is built on OpenStack, the industry-standard open-source cloud platform, ensuring transparency and interoperability.

Whether you're addressing compliance requirements for personal data, regaining complete control over your IT environment, or reducing geopolitical risks, we work with you to build a strategic roadmap for incremental sovereignty.

The choice before European organisations

The question is no longer whether digital sovereignty matters, but how quickly organisations will act. Geopolitical developments are forcing governments, healthcare institutions, and critical businesses to reconsider their dependencies. Those who invest now in European cloud infrastructure position themselves strategically for a future where autonomy and compliance will only grow in importance.

The EU Parliament has laid down a clear marker: Europe must control its own digital destiny. The institutions and businesses that act on this imperative now will be the ones that thrive in an increasingly multipolar digital world.

This isn't about isolation—it's about choice. It's about ensuring that when geopolitical tensions rise, your organisation isn't held hostage by dependencies on foreign infrastructure. It's about compliance with European law being genuinely achievable, not contradicted by the underlying technical reality.

The shift from digital dependency to digital liberation has begun. The only question is whether your organisation will lead this transition or be forced to follow when circumstances leave no other choice.

Ready to explore what digital sovereignty means for your organisation?

Contact us for a no-obligation consultation. We'll discuss your specific situation and explore which steps make most strategic sense for your organisation's path to genuine cloud sovereignty.