Politico argues that Europe’s push to break free from U.S. tech dependency is necessary but costly, complicated, and far from complete

Writing for Politico, Mathieu Pollet and Anouk Schlung report that European governments from Germany to the Netherlands are actively trying to wean themselves off American technology platforms amid fears that the Trump administration could weaponize the continent's deep reliance on U.S. cloud infrastructure, software, and services. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google currently account for roughly 70% of the EU's cloud market, and 80% of European corporate enterprise software spending goes to U.S. vendors, creating what officials describe as a strategic liability that was once seen as simply good economics. Germany's Schleswig-Holstein state offers the most advanced case study, having migrated 40,000 email accounts from Outlook to open-source alternatives and saved €15M in licensing costs, though officials acknowledge the transition has caused significant productivity losses and technical headaches that underscore how difficult the path forward will be for the rest of Europe.