European cloud and digital service providers are urging the European Commission to legislate real tech sovereignty in the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), aiming to prevent sovereignty-washing by big US hyperscalers.

The open letter highlights ongoing tensions between Brussels and CISPE, criticizing the EU’s sovereignty framework for favoring incumbents over local operators.

Signatories call for funding to build local European alternatives for critical components like memory and processors, alongside stricter environmental sustainability requirements.

They propose five principles: sovereignty means actual control; ensure resilience through measures like customer-controlled encryption and data portability; reserve procurement shares for European providers; strengthen competition and interoperability while avoiding AI-cloud bundling; and prioritize EU-funded outcomes for cloud and AI infrastructure.

Local providers see a chance to gain market ground, potentially increasing their roughly 15% share, particularly in public procurement and handling sensitive data, if the act emphasizes European resilience and sovereignty.

Microsoft’s admitted difficulty in guaranteeing data sovereignty in a legal context is cited to illustrate challenges for US cloud firms branding themselves as sovereign for Europe.

Experts warn that disentangling European workloads from US clouds could take decades given AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud together hold about 70% of the regional market.

If truly sovereign IT services are unavailable, European entities should retain control over their data and workloads to guard against foreign interference.

The piece situates a broader European push to reduce reliance on American tech infrastructure and build a more EU-native cloud ecosystem.

The letter advocates reserved procurement shares for European providers managing sensitive data and rejects locking into large, marginalizing frameworks, pushing taxpayer-funded cloud and AI investments toward European supply chains and local component development.

CADA is expected to codify sustainability criteria for cloud investments and promote energy-efficient, high-performance data centers, with the EU Commission yet to respond publicly.

The open letter targets EU Commissioner Henna Virkkunen, who leads the CADA initiative and hosted industry roundtables.