Digital liberation: EU Parliament calls for detachment from US tech giants

On Thursday, the EU Parliament adopted a report on technological sovereignty and digital infrastructure with a large, cross-party majority of the EPP, Social Democrats, Liberals, and Greens. This broad alliance signals the determination of the MEPs to drastically reduce European dependence on US technologies and to massively expand their own capabilities.

With the resolution, the representatives are calling on the EU Commission for bold reforms, particularly an ambitious "Cloud and AI Development Act". The adoption of an amendment, with which the Parliament reaffirms the EU's right to enforce its laws, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA). It strongly condemns US entry bans against civil society actors such as the leadership of the civil society organization HateAid, sets a political exclamation mark.

In terms of content, the report focuses on a strategic reorientation of public procurement and infrastructure. The compromise line adopted stipulates that member states can favor European tech providers in strategic sectors to systematically strengthen the technological capacity of the Community. The Greens even called for a stricter regulation here, where the use of products "Made in EU" should become the rule and exceptions would have to be explicitly justified. They also pushed for a definition for cloud infrastructure that provides for full EU jurisdiction without dependencies on third countries.

Shift towards Open Source

With the decision, the MEPs want to lay the foundation for a European digital public infrastructure based on open standards and interoperability. The principle of Public Money, Public Code is anchored as a strategic foundation to reduce dependence on individual providers. Software specifically developed for administration with tax money should therefore be made available to everyone under free licenses. For financing, the Parliament relies on the expansion of public-private investments. A "European Sovereign Tech Fund" endowed with ten billion euros was discussed beforehand, for example, to specifically build strategic infrastructures that the market does not provide on its own.

The shadow rapporteur for the Greens, Alexandra Geese, sees Europe ready to take control of its digital future with the vote. As long as European data is held by US providers subject to laws such as the Cloud Act, security in Europe is not guaranteed.

GI for "European Tech First"

The urgency of the parliamentary demands is confirmed by an analysis by the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI). Experts such as Harald Wehnes and Julian Kunkel warn that 2025 marks a deep cut: the new US national security strategy explicitly defines digital infrastructures as national security assets. The Trump administration's paper clearly shows a "digital imperialism" that sees Europe merely as a sales market and territory for strategic dependencies. If US monopolies are instrumentalized as a means of power, Europe risks becoming a politically disenfranchised area.

The GI authors point out that the EU's services trade deficit with the USA already reached a record high of 148 billion euros in 2024. This enormous sum flows directly into the technological dominance of the other side. Considering this threat, they are pushing for a radical turnaround in public IT procurement. The "European Tech First" approach is not blind protectionism, but self-defense to secure the ability to act.

The computer scientists are particularly critical of "Sovereignty Washing": Offers from US hyperscalers for "sovereign clouds" are often makeshift solutions, as final technological control remains in the US. Instead, consistent preference for open-source solutions from the European economic area is needed. The Parliament's decision offers the opportunity to give these appeals political weight. The MEPs want to pave the way for an independent, value-oriented digital Europe that is no longer controlled from the outside by algorithmic control.

(wpl)