Digital hostage: Why Europe can hardly pull the plug on the USA

Nervousness is growing in the corridors of the EU Commission. Since the beginning of the year, leading officials of the Brussels government institution have warned that the decades-long dependence on US technology companies could be misused as a lever by the White House in an emergency. But while the EU leadership, together with consultants, business alliances and civil society organizations dream of the much-invoked digital sovereignty, the member states are sending a sobering message back: Europe's digital infrastructure runs on US code, and that is unlikely to change significantly in the foreseeable future.

A recent survey by Politico among the 27 EU governments indicates a deep division. While awareness of the continent's digital vulnerability has grown, at the latest with the second Trump administration, according to the results. However, the responses from the leading ministries reveal only a small actual room for maneuver regarding Washington and Silicon Valley.

In Northern Europe in particular, the scenario of technological blackmail is now being played out concretely. According to the report, Finland stated that it had recently simulated a US “kill switch,” i.e., a targeted shutdown of critical services. The result of the exercise was not very encouraging: the effects were classified as “far-reaching.” At the same time, however, it turned out that such a step would also massively damage the US economy itself.

No quick decoupling

Despite this realization, many EU states emphasize the sheer impossibility of a quick decoupling. For countries like Latvia and Lithuania, recourse to US giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, or Google seems so important that they could hardly function without their products and services. Considering the permanent threat of Russian cyberattacks and hybrid warfare, the Baltic states see US technology not as a risk factor but as an important shield. A technological break with the USA is therefore neither realistic nor in Europe's strategic interest, it is said, for example, from Vilnius.

Although Henna Virkkunen, Vice President of the Commission for Technological Sovereignty, warns that dependencies in today's world act like weapons and could be used against Europe. However, the market dominance of the Silicon Valley giants seems so firmly cemented by economies of scale and deep integration that European alternatives are often niche products so far.

OpenDesk as a role model

As early as 2019, PwC auditors raised the alarm in a study for the Federal Ministry of the Interior: According to them, the dependence on Microsoft products in particular leads to “pain points for the federal administration that are contrary to the strategic goals of the federal IT.” The users and strategists surveyed found the limited information security and legal gray areas, for example regarding data protection, to be particularly critical. However, even the Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs now conceded to Politico that a complete replacement of foreign services is simply impossible in the short to medium term. Nevertheless, the Bundestag is considering a breakthrough.

In parallel, there are regional efforts to loosen the US focus. France has already prohibited its officials from using tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom and is instead relying on domestic systems. Schleswig-Holstein is also pushing for the exit from proprietary US software and migrating to open-source software. The hope of many actors rests on such open solutions. Since the source code is openly available here, the risk of backdoors or sudden service shutdowns by third countries is reduced. In addition, value creation and investments remain in Europe.

The cloud-based office suite OpenDesk of the federal government is now considered an international example of the attempt to regain digital sovereignty through open standards and free source code. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is already using this and other alternative platforms. It wants to protect itself from potential further US sanctions that could hinder the work of the judiciary. Previously, the ICC Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, had been disconnected from his Microsoft-based email account based on an executive order from the Trump administration. This incident is considered a wake-up call by many.

The EU Commission is planning a legislative package for technological sovereignty for the spring, which will also include a dedicated open-source strategy. The initiative is considered the first real test of whether the Brussels executive body has more to offer than just lip service. Critics are already complaining in advance that there is a lack of political will and attention to seriously loosen the “stranglehold” of US hyperscalers.

(olb)