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https://www.theregister.com/columnists/2026/07/27/digital-sovereignty-is-real-in-europe-the-uk-not-so-much/5276852>
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OPINION Sick of relying on proprietary programs and American software giants
and hyperclouds? Join the digital sovereignty revolution.
It really is the smart thing to do. Honestly, with Donald Trump calling the
shots, who knows what he'll do next? Demand that American companies stop
providing services to European companies unless Denmark surrenders Greenland?
Order Microsoft to disable Windows 11 unless the International Criminal Court
is dismantled? Force Anthropic to lock down Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models
for international users? Oh, wait. They already did the last one.
Wake up, sheeple! You can't trust American tech, and I speak as a US citizen
whose ancestors first arrived in the States in the 1770s. Finnish MEP Aura
Salla put it well at February's Open Source Policy Summit: "The EU runs on
Microsoft. The US could turn us off inside one hour."
The same is true for the UK and pretty much every country in the world. If that
doesn't scare you, it should.
Some people get it. When I was at the United Nations Open Source Week recently,
it wasn't just European Union countries beating the drum for digital
sovereignty. Speakers from Tanzania, Vietnam, Morocco, and elsewhere argued for
greater control over their technology futures.
Many of them aren't just talking a good game. They are actually doing something
now. Finally!
For example, the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is dumping Microsoft
SharePoint for Nextcloud and OpenProject. Bavaria is also moving toward digital
sovereignty. Neither state is jumping from Windows to desktop Linux yet, but,
hey, baby steps.
Ireland was preparing to pull the trigger on a Microsoft procurement
potentially worth €1 billion when the government called a halt. Opposition
politicians then asked why open source alternatives had never made it onto the
shopping list.
Ireland's Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service
Reform and Digitalization, Frankie Feighan, said the agreement for Microsoft
software and services had been canceled after "matters of concern were raised
by an interested party."
At the UN Open Source Week, Ireland's Government CIO, Louise McKeever, said
that as far as she was concerned, digital sovereignty is "the ability of a
government to maintain control over its digital infrastructure, data, and
technologies" in a world of cross‑border data flows, AI, and geopolitical risk
– and that makes it "a national security concern" as much as a tech one.
Cian O'Callaghan, deputy leader of Ireland's opposition Social Democrats, would
agree. He said that, for value-for-money reasons and to avoid US technology
dependency, Ireland should at least consider alternatives including
"LibreOffice, Linux, Thunderbird, and Open-Xchange."”
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
