Europe's cloud minnows tell Brussels to stop big tech 'sovereignty-washing'
24 execs sign open letter demanding control-based definitions and reserved procurement
Execs from 24 European cloud and digital service providers are urging the European Commission to legislate for real tech sovereignty – not the illusion of it – in the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA).
The CEOs, drawn from tech trade association CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe), signed a letter calling on EVP for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen to embed several key principles in CADA [PDF].
They want the EU's first cloud and AI legislation to cultivate a competitive native cloud ecosystem, rather than enable what CISPE calls "sovereignty-washing" – measures that would further entrench the dominance of global hyperscalers, most of them American.
The letter's central argument is that sovereignty must be defined by control, not by whether a provider merely has an EU presence. That means effective ownership of technology and protection from extraterritorial laws like the US CLOUD Act, which can compel American tech companies to provide data to US authorities, including data stored overseas, subject to legal process.
Microsoft admitted in a French court last year that it couldn't guarantee data sovereignty for European customers in the event of an injunction that was legally justified. This is an uncomfortable fact for US cloud firms that market "sovereign cloud" services in Europe.
CISPE's specific requests include reserved procurement shares for European providers handling sensitive data, avoidance of large-scale frameworks that effectively lock out local players, and a requirement that taxpayer-funded cloud and AI investments prioritize European supply chains. The association also wants funding to develop local alternatives for key components such as memory and processors, alongside stricter environmental sustainability requirements.
Where truly sovereign IT services remain unavailable, CISPE argues European entities should at minimum retain effective control over their cloud data, infrastructure, and workloads, particularly if foreign governments or third parties attempt to interfere.
"CADA is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put Europe back on the front foot in the digital economy, and we must not squander it by legitimizing sovereignty-washing," declared CISPE Secretary General Francisco Mingorance.
"A gigawatt of sovereign European cloud and AI infrastructure must mean investing in Europe's digital future and its strategic autonomy. Otherwise, Europe will simply deepen its dependence on overseas cloud giants," he added.
This isn't CISPE's first clash with Brussels on the issue. Last year, it hit out at the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework for defining sovereignty so vaguely that it favoured incumbent hyperscalers over local operators.
The wider goal of digital sovereignty faces steep odds regardless. Experts told The Register last year that untangling European workloads and data from the major US clouds could take two decades, given the volume already deployed there.
AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud have also spent more than a decade building platforms that smaller rivals struggle to match across the full stack. The three hyperscalers account for around 70 percent of the cloud services market in the region.
"The big three are the only ones with a truly comprehensive range of cloud services. Beyond that, most other cloud providers are limited to a specific service or geographic niche," Synergy Research Group chief analyst and research director John Dinsdale told us.
Political urgency has sharpened since the Trump administration took office last year, accelerating European appetite for reducing dependence on American tech infrastructure. ®