Civil personnel in France will use a domestic video conference system instead of Zoom and Teams.
After the military discontinued using Microsoft Office, Austrian soldiers are now writing reports using open-source office software. For their administrative tasks, bureaucrats in a German state have also resorted to using free software.
Governments and institutions throughout Europe are looking to adopt free or indigenous alternatives instead of the digital services provided by the Big Tech companies in the United States.
The Trump administration’s more aggressive stance towards the continent, exemplified by recent tensions over Greenland that heightened concerns that Silicon Valley firms would be forced to cut off access, is drawing attention to the campaign for “digital sovereignty.”
The drive is also being fueled by worries about data privacy and the fact that Europe is not doing enough to keep up with the tech leadership of China and the United States.
When the French government stated this week that 2.5 million civil officials would move to Visio, a domestic service, by 2027 instead of using video conference solutions from U.S. suppliers like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and GoTo Meeting, it made mention of some of these worries.
The goal is “to put an end to the use of non-European solutions, to guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool.”
In a news statement, civil service minister David Amiel stated, “We cannot risk having our scientific exchanges, our sensitive data, and our strategic innovations exposed to non-European actors.”
Microsoft stated that it still “respects the importance of security, privacy, and digital trust for public institutions and partners closely with the French government.”
“Focused on providing customers with greater choice, stronger data protection, and resilient cloud services — ensuring data stays in Europe, under European law, with robust security and privacy protections,” the business stated.
For many years, French President Emmanuel Macron has advocated for digital sovereignty.
However, Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at the Eurasia Group, notes that there is now much greater “political momentum behind this idea now that we need to de-risk from U.S. tech.”
“There seems to be a genuine shift in the zeitgeist,” Reiners remarked.
At the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering of world leaders in business and politics last month in Davos, Switzerland, it was a hot issue.
Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s tech sovereignty representative, warned an audience that Europe’s dependence on other countries “can be weaponized against us.”
Without mentioning any nations or businesses, she stated, “That’s why it’s so important that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to very critical fields of our economy or society.”
An important turning point occurred last year when the Trump administration slapped the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which is headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, after the court issued an arrest order for President Donald Trump’s buddy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Microsoft’s decision to cancel Khan’s ICC email due to the penalties, which raised concerns about a “kill switch” those Big Tech corporations, may use to terminate service at any time.
Microsoft communicated with the ICC “during the process that led to the disconnection of its sanctioned official from Microsoft services.” Microsoft never stopped providing the ICC with services.
Microsoft President Brad Smith has consistently worked to improve transatlantic relations. He cited an interview he made with CNN in Davos last month in which he stated that jobs, trade, and investment. A fissure over Greenland would impact both security and other aspects of life.
“Europe is the American tech sector’s biggest market after the United States itself. Everything relies on trust. Conversation is necessary for trust, according to Smith.
The movement has been strengthened by other instances. Many believe that the EU’s repeated attempts to control internet behemoths like Google through massive antitrust penalties and comprehensive digital regulations haven’t had much of an impact.
Elon Musk, a billionaire, also plays a role. Authorities in Ukraine are concerned about using his Starlink satellite internet system for communications.
After former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed U.S. cyber-snooping, Washington and Brussels fought for years over data transfer arrangements.
Europeans worry that their data is at risk because internet services are now mostly located in data centers and the cloud.
In response, U.S. cloud companies established so-called “sovereign cloud” operations, with data centers situated in European nations, controlled by European organizations, and accessible both physically and remotely exclusively to employees who reside in the European Union.
According to Reiners, “only Europeans can take decisions so that they can’t be coerced by the U.S.”
Last year, 44,000 employee inboxes in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein switched from Microsoft to an open source email program.
It also switched from Microsoft’s SharePoint file sharing system to Nextcloud, an open source platform, and is even considering replacing Windows with Linux and telephones and videoconferencing with open source systems.
In an October declaration, Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter stated, “We want to become independent of large tech companies and ensure digital sovereignty.”
Last year, the French city of Lyon announced that it would be replacing Microsoft Office with free software. Open-source software has also been tested by the Danish government and the cities of Aarhus and Copenhagen.
Last year, Caroline Stage Olsen, the minister of digital, stated on LinkedIn, “We must never become so dependent on so few that we can no longer act freely.” “Currently, a large portion of the public digital infrastructure is dependent on a small number of foreign suppliers.”
According to the Austrian military, it has also shifted to LibreOffice, a software suite that mimics Microsoft 365’s Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and includes word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tools.
The military’s move, according to the Document Foundation, a German nonprofit organization that created LibreOffice, “reflects a growing demand for independence from single vendors.”
According to reports, the military was also worried that Microsoft was shifting online file storage to the cloud because LibreOffice’s standard edition isn’t cloud-based.
Italo Vignoli, a spokeswoman for The Document Foundation, stated that the program was used by a few Italian cities and regions years ago. Not having to pay for software licensing was the draw at the time. Nowadays, avoiding being restricted to a proprietary system is the primary justification.
Vignoli stated, “At first, it was: we will save money and, incidentally, we will get freedom.” “Today is the day: we’ll be free and, incidentally, save some cash.”
