Source: European Parliament
Question for written answer E-002362/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Mathilde Androuët (PfE)
On 23 January 2025, the President of the Association of Seniors of the European Public Service sent an administrative request to the Commission to express his concerns about its decision to migrate all institutional systems to giant servers operating outside the European Union[1].
Rather than setting up a local cloud, the Commission has entrusted its cloud solutions to Microsoft Corporation and ServiceNow, two US companies linked by a strategic alliance and subject to US federal law.
Customers who opt for ServiceNow’s software solutions therefore automatically become customers of Microsoft’s hardware solutions, and vice versa.
This means that the US authorities could, if they so wished, physically interrupt access to servers and cloud applications managed by Microsoft.
- 1.Is this decision consistent with the Commission’s championing of a sovereign European cloud[2], as well as with its announced funding of an important project of common European interest aimed at fostering innovation and reducing dependence on non-EU suppliers?[3]
- 2.Companies such as OVHcloud or T-Systems offer competitive cloud services. Has the Commission invited these companies to a call for tender in relation to this matter?
Submitted: 11.6.2025
- [1] Bulletin of March 2025, ‘Strategic IT-risks in conjunction with the roll-out of new cloud technology’, page 7, https://sfpe-seps.eu/en/dcument/last-bulletins/
- [2] ‘Commission welcomes Member States’ declaration on EU cloud federation’, 15 October 2020, https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-welcomes-member-states-declaration-eu-cloud-federation
- [3] ‘What is the European sovereign cloud?’, Joseph Boyle and Raziye Akkoc, 5 June 2024, https://www.frenchweb.fr/quest-ce-que-le-cloud-souverain-europeen/448444