European officials are no longer treating a rupture with Silicon Valley as a far‑fetched thought experiment. The fear that Washington could abruptly restrict access to critical cloud, chips and platforms has turned into a central strategic question, as capitals scramble for a plan B that would keep hospitals, banks and governments running if the tap from the United States suddenly ran dry. The debate over how to cut this exposure without cutting off innovation now sits at the heart of Europe’s push for digital sovereignty.
At stake is far more than social media or streaming services. From industrial control systems to public health databases, the continent’s core infrastructure runs on technologies overwhelmingly designed, hosted or controlled in the United States. That imbalance is driving a flurry of legislation, funding programs and technical experiments that aim to give Europe its own stack, even as leaders insist they still want to cooperate with Washington rather than decouple outright.
From nightmare scenario to governing assumption
In Brussels and major capitals, the once abstract idea of a US cutoff has hardened into a working scenario that policymakers feel obliged to plan for. Analysts now talk openly about a European Nightmare Scenario in which the United States, under pressure from domestic politics or security concerns, simply “Turns Off the Tech Tap” to its closest ally. I see that phrase circulating not as clickbait but as shorthand for a structural risk: a continent that depends on foreign platforms for everything from email to energy grids has no real leverage if those platforms become bargaining chips in a transatlantic dispute.
The political backdrop has sharpened those anxieties. As Trump administration officials play hardball on trade, regulation and security cooperation, European strategists have watched the White House treat supply chains as tools of pressure rather than neutral plumbing. One draft strategy, described in detail as As Trump officials escalate demands, explicitly warns that Europe is “on the weak side of the chain,” a blunt admission that the balance of power in digital infrastructure currently lies in Washington and in the boardrooms of US giants.
Europe’s deep dependence laid bare
The scale of that imbalance is now spelled out in official documents rather than whispered in policy seminars. In a landmark resolution on technological sovereignty and digital infrastructure, the European Parliament noted that the bloc relies on non‑EU providers for more than 80% of its digital infrastructure. That figure covers cloud computing, data centres, core software and the chips that power everything from smartphones to industrial robots. When lawmakers call for a “Eurostack,” they are not indulging in branding exercises, they are acknowledging that Europe currently lacks homegrown options at almost every layer of the stack.
National experiments highlight both the vulnerability and the potential escape routes. In northern Germany, the state of Schleswig Holstein has begun migrating government systems away from proprietary US software toward open‑source alternatives, aiming to complete the shift by the end of the decade. I see that move as a test case for whether regional authorities can realistically unwind years of lock‑in, from office suites to messaging tools, without sacrificing security or usability for civil servants and citizens.
Legislating a European plan B
Faced with these numbers, Brussels is turning to law and money as its main levers. A wave of new rules is being prepared to reshape markets for cloud services, data centres, semiconductors and even quantum technologies, all with the explicit goal of reducing dependence on US providers. Officials describe a broad Europe‑wide infrastructure push that would set security and sovereignty requirements for critical services, while also channelling subsidies toward European manufacturers and cloud operators that can meet those standards.
Money is starting to follow the rhetoric. Analyses of Public Funding and Strategic Programmes in 2026 point to a growing web of national and EU‑level schemes, from the Digital Europe Programme to targeted support for secure cloud and cybersecurity providers. I read these initiatives as an attempt to build a pipeline: research grants to nurture new technologies, industrial alliances to scale them, and procurement rules that give European vendors a guaranteed market in public administration and critical infrastructure.
Quantum bets, connectivity rules and the Brussels toolbox
Beyond cloud and chips, Brussels is betting that leadership in emerging fields could give it more bargaining power in any future standoff with Washington. The proposed The Quantum Act, framed as Turning Europe Strategy Growth and Security, is pitched as a decisive moment for Europe’s quantum ambitions, aligning research funding with deployment needs in areas like secure communications and advanced sensing. If Europe can anchor parts of the global quantum supply chain on its territory, it will be less exposed to unilateral export controls from the United States or other powers.
At the same time, regulators are trying to simplify the rules that govern the physical networks carrying all this data. The European Commission has stressed that Digital connectivity is a cornerstone of modern societies and is working on “Making” it easier to deploy high‑capacity networks while still protecting competition and security. I see this as a recognition that sovereignty is not just about owning data centres or writing software, it is also about ensuring that fibre, 5G and future 6G networks are robust, diversified and not beholden to any single foreign vendor.
Trump, Big Tech and the politics of pressure
Transatlantic politics are adding urgency to all of these technical debates. The European Union’s executive arm is already drafting new legislation aimed at promoting what it calls technological sovereignty, a response to fears that US politics could spill over into export controls or regulatory retaliation. According to The European Union, the goal is not autarky but resilience, ensuring that political swings in Washington cannot instantly translate into outages or compliance crises for European companies and public bodies.
Yet the pressure is not one‑sided. In Washington, Big Tech firms and the Trump administration are pushing for tax cuts and deregulation at home while warning Europe against stricter digital rules. Reporting on these efforts describes how, Last month, former European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other officials with European nongovernmental organizations raised alarms about a proposed Digital Networks Act in the United States, arguing that it could entrench US platforms’ dominance while undermining European regulatory autonomy. I read their intervention as a sign that the sovereignty debate now runs in both directions, with each side accusing the other of weaponising regulation.
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