Main points
- The European Union plans to introduce new rules to reduce dependence on foreign cloud services, including restricting the use of platforms from American companies to store sensitive data.
- American tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google are already offering special “sovereign” solutions to preserve their positions in the European market, but the final shape of the new rules is still unknown.
Europe wants to limit American clouds – what will change for government data / Unsplash / Bluestonex
The European Union is preparing another step towards digital autonomy. New rules could significantly change the cloud services market and reconsider the role of American tech giants in the work of the public sector.
The European Commission is preparing to present a massive package of new digital initiatives that could seriously affect the position of the largest American cloud providers in Europe. It is the so-called Tech Sovereignty Package. This is reported by Tech Radar .
Why does Europe want to abandon American clouds?
Its key goal is to reduce the dependence of European Union countries on foreign technological infrastructure and strengthen control over the processing of particularly sensitive public sector data.
The new rules could restrict the use of cloud platforms by American companies to store and process confidential government information. Potential restrictions could include services from giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which currently dominate the global cloud computing market.
According to market estimates, Amazon Web Services' share is about a third of the global market, while Microsoft and Google's cloud services together control about another third.
What data do they want to protect?
The new rules will likely not apply to all types of information, but only to the most sensitive categories. These include medical records, financial documents, legal archives, government documentation, and other data sets of strategic importance to states.
According to an unnamed official familiar with the negotiations, quoted by CNBC , “ The main idea is to identify sectors whose data should be hosted exclusively in European cloud facilities .”
This means that certain sectors may be required to store data exclusively in infrastructure that is fully controlled by European providers. At this stage, the discussion is mainly about the public sector. Private companies are not yet the main target of future regulation.
The main reason is the American Cloud Act?
One of the key factors pushing Brussels to take tougher decisions is the CLOUD Act passed in the US in 2018.
This regulation allows US law enforcement agencies to request access to data from US companies even when the information is physically stored on servers outside the United States, particularly in Europe. This legal conflict has long been a concern among European regulators.
Even if an American provider builds data centers within the EU and declares local data storage, this does not guarantee complete inaccessibility of information to American jurisdiction.
How are American companies trying to adapt?
To maintain its position in the European market, the largest cloud companies have already started offering special “sovereign” solutions. Microsoft is developing the Microsoft Sovereign Cloud platform, and is also working with local partners, including the French Bleu and the German Delos Cloud.
Amazon is promoting the AWS European Sovereign Cloud project, aimed at European government customers. Google Cloud is also developing its solutions, offering sovereign and isolated cloud environments for working with critical information.
However, European officials are increasingly emphasizing that local infrastructure does not completely solve the problem if the parent company remains subject to American law.
What to expect next?
The final shape of the Tech Sovereignty Package remains unknown. After its presentation, the document still needs to be agreed upon by all 27 EU member states. It is at this stage that it will become clear how radical the new requirements will be.
If the initiative is supported in its current form, it could become one of the most important decisions in European digital policy in recent years and significantly reshape the cloud technology market in the region. For Europe, it is a chance to strengthen its own technology sector. For American corporations, it is a signal that the era of undisputed dominance in the European cloud market may be coming to an end.