Europe's digital sovereignty: building independence from US cloud giants to guard against digital blackouts

Guardian report on digital sovereignty and resilience

Guardian examines how Europe is pursuing greater digital independence from US cloud giants to bolster critical services in a crisis. It highlights how a small number of US-headquartered cloud providers control a large share of Europe’s cloud market, the vulnerability this creates for banks, healthcare, and public administration, and real-world outages such as the October 2025 AWS incident and the Cloudflare disruption that affected LinkedIn and Zoom. The piece also notes cross‑border events like the April 2025 power cuts in parts of Spain, Portugal and south‑west France as context for cloud dependence and crisis risk. It reports on European pilots and policies aimed at sovereign computing and data control, and argues for treating digital infrastructure as core public infrastructure. Guardian

Introduction: The threat of digital blackouts

Imagine the internet failing across essential services. Payments in local shops would stall, regional healthcare systems might go down, and work tools and data could disappear. When social media platforms go dark, communication with family and updates on events become nearly impossible. The article frames this as a real possibility, noting that technical failures, cyber attacks, and natural disasters can disrupt the internet and cloud services. It also raises geopolitical concerns that the US could leverage digital infrastructure access in diplomatic bargaining, prompting Europe to rethink its cloud dependency. It cites a finding that about 70% of the European cloud market is held by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, with European providers around 15%, and argues this concentration increases vulnerability across private and public sectors.

"structural-imperative" for Europe to "build a new form of independence" in technology and security - Ursula von der Leyen, EU President

European moves toward independence

The piece highlights that Europe is beginning to act on digital independence through pilots and policy. In Helsingborg, Sweden, a one-year experiment tests how public services would function during a digital blackout, examining whether elderly patients would still receive medications and whether social services could continue to function. The goal is to quantify the full range of human, technical, and legal challenges and to develop a crisis model that can be shared with other municipalities. Across northern Europe, several governments are pursuing open-source software as a sovereign digital option, aiming to move away from reliance on global tech firms in areas such as cloud, chat, video and document management. Schleswig-Holstein in Germany has replaced most Microsoft-powered systems with open-source alternatives, signaling a potential end to broad dependence by the end of the decade. Across France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, public administrations are investing in open-source platforms and tools to host their own services under sovereign terms. Sweden’s National Insurance Agency has built a domestic cloud service for public authorities and is offering it as a sovereign option.

"digital public good" open-source software can be moved between clouds and operated under sovereign conditions - Guardian

Policy and personal choices

The article argues that digital infrastructure should be treated with the same seriousness as physical infrastructure such as ports and power grids. It calls for core public responsibility in the control, maintenance, and crisis preparedness of digital systems, rather than outsourcing to global providers. The EU has introduced a cloud sovereignty framework to guide procurement and keep data under European control, with the Cloud and AI Development Act expected to strengthen resources in this area. Governments and private sector actors are urged to prioritize security, openness and interoperability in cloud bids, alongside affordable pricing. The piece concludes by urging individuals to consider where emails, photos and conversations are stored and how data can be backed up or transferred, recognizing that no country will be perfectly digitally independent, but that coordinated action can ensure access to digital services even in crisis.

"No country, let alone continent, will ever be completely digitally independent, and nor should they" - Guardian

Conclusion: A shared path to resilience

While complete independence is neither practical nor desirable, the article suggests Europe can enhance resilience by combining regional action, open-source platforms, and EU-level regulatory frameworks to keep digital systems accessible during emergencies. It emphasizes the need for collaboration across member states and between public and private sectors to create a robust, interoperable, and secure cloud ecosystem that supports essential services in times of crisis.