Europe is suddenly gaming out what happens if the US turns nasty and yanks the digital rug out from under it.
President Donald Trump this week floated taking control of Greenland by force if necessary, which has made European officials twitchy about the US’s tech dependency.
The nightmare is an executive order that cuts Europe off from data centres or email software that businesses and governments need to keep the lights on.
Balderton Capital, managing partner Bernard Liautaud told the Wall Street Journal: “When you start having these kinds of thoughts, even if they’re just thoughts, you have to start thinking: How would that work? Can you imagine Europe functioning without American technology? It’s very hard to imagine.”
Trump’s Greenland posturing has hardened views in European capitals that reliance on the US runs deeper than comfort, from tech to defence to trade.
The European Parliament on 23 January 2026 passed a “technological sovereignty” resolution backing procurement rules that favour European products and nudging new cloud legislation.
The EU’s executive arm is drafting new sovereignty legislation, officials say, and one noted that open discussion of US security risks would have been unthinkable six months ago.
Officials insist this is about trimming dependencies and giving local firms a leg up, not binning US tech entirely.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, leaders kicked around the idea of a Europe-US tech “decoupling”, while admitting it would be a proper slog.
The dependence is worse in cloud computing, where Amazon, Google and Microsoft dominate, and Europe’s spending keeps piling up.
IDC figures put 2024 European cloud infrastructure spending at nearly $25 billion, with the top five US providers taking 83 per cent of the market.
Bpifrance, head Nicolas Dufourcq said on French television, “Big European companies should use European software. Choosing American digital technology by default is too easy and must stop.”
Europe once helped drive the mobile boom with Nokia and Ericsson, then faceplanted in the internet era and never built giants to match the US or China.
Governments bankrolled homegrown search engines for years, but none got close to denting Google’s grip.
Founders blame a risk-averse culture, a fragmented market and regulation that moves like treacle, which is why the EU is now trying to loosen some digital rules.
The sovereignty itch is not new, and it flared in 2013 after Edward Snowden’s leaks put US surveillance back in the spotlight. That mess fed into the EU court trashing a transatlantic data-sharing deal, with US tech giants again right in the firing line.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, Europe bristled at a US law that allowed law enforcement to demand data held overseas by American cloud firms.
US providers kept growing anyway, building more European data centres and promising not to ship customer data elsewhere.
More recently, they added options to store data with European-controlled subsidiaries or partners, which executives in Davos say they now want as standard.
Since Trump’s re-election, European officials have pushed US cloud providers to make it easier for critical sectors like energy to move workloads locally if Washington pulls the plug.
In Germany, Microsoft expanded a deal with Delos Cloud, a SAP subsidiary, to deliver its services under Delos ownership and control. Vole has reworked subsidiaries and installed Europe-only boards to look more local, while still keeping the mothership in charge.
Amazon launched a “sovereign cloud” service in Europe run by EU citizens and based in Germany. Google has built sovereign cloud partnerships too, including a French joint venture fully operated by a local business to buffer clients from US demands.
Google, former EMEA chief Matt Brittin said, “What they’re really looking for is a degree of control and safety and security. ”
The money at stake is not pocket change, as US tech exports to Europe exceeded $360 billion in digitally deliverable services in 2024.
Alphabet pulls a chunky slice of revenue from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and US giants have sunk plenty into European offices, infrastructure and labs.
France and Germany are pushing loudest, and Germany’s digital ministry is testing an open-source alternative to Microsoft workplace tools called openDesk.
In November, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosted a digital-sovereignty summit with France to push EU tech rule changes, European preference in buying and fresh data centre investment.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron has made local champions and loosening EU regulation a core theme, while boosting Mistral AI and pitching nuclear-powered data centres.
France, president Emmanuel Macron said at that summit, “Our willingness is clearly to do everything we can to build European champions. This is just a refusal to be a vassal.”
