BRUSSELS, June 1 – A coalition of 13 European cloud computing companies has joined with EU legislators and advocacy organizations to support the European Commission’s initiative to reduce Europe’s dependence on American technology while strengthening domestic businesses.
The Commission plans to unveil new measures Wednesday designed to prioritize European companies over American competitors for cloud streaming services in sensitive government contracts, while simultaneously increasing production of European-manufactured semiconductors.
This initiative stems partially from strained relations with both the United States and China, along with broader efforts to compete with these nations in critical technologies.
“Technological sovereignty means that Europe has the capacity to freely design, understand, choose from different home-grown sources, build, operate and effectively regulate the digital systems on which its society and economy rely,” the coalition stated in a joint open letter obtained by Reuters.
Companies signing the letter include French cloud vendor OVHcloud, Germany’s Nextcloud, social networks Mastodon and Monnett Social, Swiss privacy software company Proton, browser company Ecosia and Dutch quantum chip maker QuantWare.
European Parliament members from the Greens group and six advocacy organizations including Defend Democracy and Save Social also endorsed the letter.
“Our message is simple: Build European, buy European, protect European,” stated lawmaker Alexandra Geese.
