‘A matter of national survival’: European governments on how they’re accelerating digital sovereignty as geopolitical tensions ramp up

Digital sovereignty is a “matter of national survival,” a European minister has told CNBC, as the continent scrambles to undo the dominance of U.S. digital services in its infrastructure amid geopolitical tensions.

The region’s dependence on U.S. tech and military protection has come into sharp focus, as its relationship with President Donald Trump’s administration has deteriorated amid challenges from China and Russia.

Trump alarmed Europe by imposing tariffs last year after returning to the White House. This year, he caused further alarm with his provocative refusal to rule out military action to acquire Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, before eventually ruling it out.

U.S. cloud providers dominate the European market with an 85% share, according to data from Synergy Research Group.

Critics warn that this dependency on non-sovereign providers is a risk amid reports of increasing cyberattacks by Russia and growing geopolitical tensions with the U.S. administration. Under the 2018 Cloud Act, the country’s law enforcement can request user data from American companies, regardless of where the data is stored.

Estonia told CNBC it was accelerating its “open-source first” principle because of “heightened security threats on Europe’s eastern flank.” Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine raised fears it could target the Baltic states, including Estonia.

“This has made digital sovereignty a matter of national survival, not just IT policy,” Liisa Pakosta, the country’s minister of justice and digital affairs, said.

Other European governments told CNBC how they were exploring homegrown and open-source alternatives to U.S. tech platforms and upping budgets for digital sovereignty.

“Strengthening digital sovereignty is one of the central goals” of the current German government, a spokesperson for its federal ministry for digital transformation and government modernization told CNBC, pointing to “geopolitical developments” of recent years.

“The current situation is characterized by high volatility and ongoing conflicts,” they said, adding that multilateral structures are being called into question by “strained” relations between the U.S. and Europe.

But Amazon, Microsoft and Google control more than 70% of the cloud market in the region, with U.S. companies holding at least 59% of the enterprise software market. 

In January, France announced it would roll out Visio — a video conferencing tool developed by the government — which it said would be available to all state services by 2027, in place of U.S. tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

The same month, the EU said it faced a “significant problem of dependence on non-EU countries in the digital sphere…potentially creating vulnerabilities, including in critical sectors.”

The Belgian federal administration is “reassessing its dependencies in the digital domain, starting with the most critical areas,” a spokesperson for the minister for digitalization told CNBC.

“In this context, a Belgian cloud computing strategy for the federal administration is being examined, alongside an analysis of the federal data center landscape,” they added. “This approach aims to address issues related to data sovereignty, resilience, and security, including the storage of the most sensitive data.”

Numerous European nations have said they have been subjected to Russian state-sponsored cyber attacks in recent years. The EU said it had observed a “deliberate and systematic pattern of malicious behaviour attributed to Russia,” in a statement in July.

Estonia’s Pakosta said: “While we value our technological partnerships, relying solely on closed, proprietary ‘black box’ solutions creates a strategic vulnerability.”

“Open source ensures that even if global connections are severed or external vendor policies change, we retain full control over the code and can keep the Estonian digital state running locally,” she added.

The country is increasing investments in strengthening sovereign digital capabilities in its 2026 state budget, Pakosta added.

Open-source alternatives to U.S. tech systems are increasingly being explored by European governments.

Denmark said it would launch a pilot of an open-source alternative to Microsoft Office for some government employees in June. “Too much public digital infrastructure is currently tied up with very few foreign suppliers,” Minister for Digital Affairs Caroline Stage Olsen said in a translated LinkedIn post at the time. “This makes us vulnerable.”

But a spokesperson for the department played down the move when approached by CNBC. Describing the pilot as “minor”, they added it was intended to “increase our understanding of alternative technologies” and that no decision to move away from Microsoft and Windows had been made.

In November, all 27 European Union member states signed a declaration stating their “shared ambition to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty” and reduce “strategic dependencies.”

Spending on sovereign cloud infrastructure-as-a-service platforms in European countries will more than triple to $23 billion in Europe in 2027, compared to 2025 levels, a recent report by research firm Gartner predicted — a much bigger increase than in North America and China.

“As geopolitical tensions rise, organisations outside the US and China are investing more in sovereign cloud IaaS to gain digital and technological independence,” said Rene Buest, senior director analyst at Gartner.

“Governments will remain the main buyers to meet digital sovereignty needs, followed by regulated industries and critical infrastructure organisations, such as energy and utilities and telecommunications,” he added.

U.S. tech platforms aren’t going to disappear from Europe any time soon. In their comments to CNBC, many European countries emphasized they were still keen to continue working with American tech companies for certain aspects of their digital infrastructure.

“We recognise and value the longstanding role that U.S. technology companies have played in Europe’s digital transformation,” said Estonia’s Pakosta. “American hyperscalers are important and trusted partners in the European cloud ecosystem.”

Even if they wanted to fully remove U.S. digital systems from Europe’s tech infrastructure, it would be unlikely to happen anytime soon.

“In order to be a leading player, you have to be continually investing large amounts in research, service development, technical infrastructure, customer support and channel partners,” John Dinsdale, Synergy Research Group’s chief analyst, told CNBC.

“It will be incredibly difficult for European cloud providers to meaningfully reverse the market share trend,” he added.