Europe is moving decisively away from U.S. tech giants toward open-source alternatives, driven by concerns over digital sovereignty and reliability of American companies[^1]. At the 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe, industry leaders emphasized that this shift isn't about isolation but resilience.

"What we're really looking for is resilience. What we want for our countries, for our companies, for ourselves, is resilience in the face of unforeseen events in a fast-changing world. Open source allows us to be sovereign without being isolated," said OpenInfra Foundation general manager Thierry Carrez[^1].

This transition is already happening. The German state Schleswig-Holstein has replaced Microsoft Exchange and Outlook with open-source email solutions. Similar moves have been made by the Austrian military, Danish government organizations, and the French city of Lyon[^1].

European companies are stepping up to fill the gap with open-source alternatives, including:

Deutsche Telekom's Open Telekom Cloud
OVHcloud's sovereign cloud services
STACKIT and VanillaCore's European-based offerings[^1]

The movement gained additional momentum when the European Commission appointed its first executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy in 2024[^1].

[^1]: ZDNet - Europe's plan to ditch US tech giants is built on open source - and it's gaining steam

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[–] DandomRude@lemmy.world 116 points 2 months ago (4 children)

A quick reminder in this context: The German government wants to introduce Palantir nationwide, even though this violates applicable law - both at the European and national levels. Contracts have even already been signed in some federal states.

Here is a link to a Campact petition calling on the SPD to block the CDU/CSU's plans.

And here is a petition addressed directly to the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg, demanding that the contract already signed with Palantir be disclosed and revoked.

In my opinion, everyone living in Germany should sign both petitions - it is scandalous that this is even necessary, but unfortunately, conservative german politicians in particular continue to pursue their shady dealings.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 35 points 2 months ago

It's an recurrent claim by the right wings, but same as the Chatcontrol, rejected, because incompatibility with the privacy rights in the EU which would be violated with Palantir and the Chat control.. There isn't any reason to introduce the control, because the current law permits an individual chat control in an crime investigation with an court order, but not an global control, which would be the same as open and controlling private cards and correspondence, which obvious is a no go.

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/eu-ueberwachungsplaene-deutschland-sagt-nein-zu-chatkontrolle,Uz1fO08

https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/chatkontrolle-eu-deutschland-bmjv-hubig-whatsapp-signal

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/chatkontrolle-eu-justizministerin-100.html

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 months ago

conservative german politicians in particular continue to pursue their shady dealings.

and will push their gov'ts back into the microsoft/google fold when they approve purchase of the next big system; and you can only hope that palantir isn't it.

[–] atmorous@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Spread it around with every German you know. Or even post on Germany related communities

[–] vogo13@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago

Friendly little reminder:

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini