A paradigm shift is in the offing in Brussels: The EU Commission is seriously considering gradually breaking away from Microsoft's cloud services and switching to European providers such as OVHcloud instead. Discussions are already underway - and they are no coincidence.
What was once considered a strategic long-term goal has been given new urgency by an incident: When the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court suddenly lost access to his email account - blocked due to US sanctions - many decision-makers suddenly realised how vulnerable even the highest institutions are when their digital infrastructure is hosted abroad.
The reaction: the EU is increasingly looking for technological self-determination. With projects such as "EuroStack" and the call for a "Europe first" strategy, European data centres and independent IT platforms are becoming the focus of political discussions. The aim is to gain more control over its own data and digital systems - also in order to avoid future geopolitical dependencies.
Microsoft continues to endeavour to strengthen the trust of European customers through data protection promises and local cloud offerings. However, pressure is growing: the EU Data Protection Commissioner recently publicly criticised the use of MS 365 because it is not compatible with the institutions' internal data protection rules.
With the new responsibility of a Commission Vice-President for Digital Sovereignty, the political and technical course now seems to have been set more clearly. The days when European authorities blindly relied on US clouds could soon be over.