EuroStack advocates see that the tide can be turned only with sustained investment, guaranteed government demand, and unified rules on transferring and securing data.
Sebastiano Toffaletti, secretary-general of the Digital SME Alliance and one of the authors of a study on the EuroStack, claims that a Buy European Tech Act could be a decisive step toward a European cloud.
“Europe has plenty of industrial capacity that just needs to be federated,” he said.
“If the European companies were reassured that governments would buy from them, then they would immediately invest and overcome the fragmentation,” he said. The same goes for AI, he added.
Sarah Knafo, a French far-right European lawmaker, suggested in a draft report for the European Parliament that governments should favor sourcing from European companies in some “strategic markets.” The Commission has separately recommended a “buy European” push for governments purchasing climate-friendly products.
Cybersecurity entrepreneur Bert Hubert, who has advised the Dutch government, said “it is madness to continue transferring the running of European societies and governments to American clouds,” according to a February blog post.
