Europe has made impressive strides in creating strong digital regulations, but a troubling reality remains: while European laws protect data on paper, most of our digital lives run on non-European platforms. This disconnect creates risks for businesses, governments, and citizens alike, as foreign policy decisions can disrupt critical services overnight.
The time has come to move beyond regulatory compliance to build and support truly European digital services – not out of protectionism, but as a practical necessity in an increasingly unpredictable digital world.
When compliance isn’t enough
European businesses and organizations have diligently followed privacy regulations, yet continue to store their most sensitive information on American cloud platforms. They collaborate through American productivity tools, communicate via American messaging services, and manage customer relationships through American CRM systems.
This creates a dangerous gap between legal protection and practical control. A European hospital might perfectly follow GDPR rules while storing patient data on servers ultimately subject to foreign surveillance. A manufacturing company might have flawless privacy notices while its entire operational backbone depends on services that could be cut off during international tensions.
Recent years have shown how quickly digital services can become pawns in larger geopolitical games:
- Social media platforms have been banned in various countries during political disputes
- App stores are removing applications at the request of foreign governments
- Data transfer mechanisms are invalidated when political relationships change
European organizations caught in these crossfires face difficult choices: either scramble to find alternatives under pressure or accept increasing legal and operational risks.
European alternatives are ready now
The good news is that capable European alternatives already exist across many essential digital service categories.
Cloud storage and collaboration: Nextcloud and pCloud offer a powerful open-source platform for document storage, sharing, and collaboration that rivals offerings from Google and Microsoft, while keeping data under European control. Organizations can host it on their own infrastructure or choose European-based hosting providers.
Bridging technologies: Sendent provides practical tools for connecting Microsoft products like Outlook, Exchange and Teams to Nextcloud, making it easier for organizations to adopt European cloud solutions while maintaining compatibility with familiar tools during transition periods.
Customer relationship management: Odoo and Efficy provide European-built CRM systems that offer robust alternatives to Salesforce and other American platforms.
Communication tools: Element, based on the Matrix protocol, delivers encrypted messaging with a European heritage, avoiding dependencies on WhatsApp or Slack. For video conferencing and team communication, Nextcloud Talk and Jitsi offer European alternatives to Zoom and Microsoft Teams, providing secure options for both casual meetings and enterprise collaboration needs.
Office productivity: OnlyOffice and Collabora provide European-developed document editing capabilities that can replace reliance on Microsoft Office or Google Workspace.
Benefits beyond compliance
Organizations that shift to European digital services gain advantages that go beyond regulatory box-checking.
- Legal clarity: Avoid complex compliance questions about international data transfers
- Operational stability: Reduce vulnerability to foreign policy decisions that could restrict service access
- Local support: Work with providers who understand European business practices and regulations
- Customization: Many European solutions offer greater flexibility to adapt to specific needs
- Cost control: Often more transparent pricing without the lock-in strategies of tech giants
Making the transition
Moving to European digital services requires thoughtful planning.
For businesses: Start by mapping your digital service dependencies and identifying high-risk areas where control lies entirely outside Europe. Consider hybrid approaches using tools like Sendent that connect familiar Microsoft tools to European cloud systems like Nextcloud, allowing for gradual transition.
For public sector: Lead by example through procurement policies that prioritize European digital services. Create shared resources to evaluate and certify European alternatives that meet public sector needs.
For service providers: Emphasize not just compliance advantages but practical benefits in reliability, customization, and support. Develop more integration tools that help organizations bridge between existing systems and European alternatives. Critically, avoid incorporating US-based software components in your EU platforms – simply hosting American services on European data centers isn’t sufficient for true sovereignty when the underlying code and control remain foreign.
Taking action
European regulations have established important protections for data. However, these protections remain incomplete without corresponding control of the infrastructure on which that data resides and operates.
True digital sovereignty comes not through compliance documents alone, but through deliberate choices about which cloud stores organizational data, which software manages operations, and which companies provide essential digital services.
European organizations have this choice available to them today. Solutions like Nextcloud and Sendent represent viable European alternatives that maintain both functionality and sovereignty. The question is no longer whether European digital sovereignty is possible, but whether organizations will make the decisions necessary to achieve it.
Initiatives like EuroStack (euro-stack.eu) further demonstrate the growing momentum behind creating a cohesive European digital infrastructure. Together, we can use EU tools to sustain entrepreneurship, create resilience, protect our autonomy, and ultimately empower EU citizens and businesses. The tools exist now. We just have to use them.
