{
  "id": 16164346,
  "title": "Europe wants more than promises from American tech",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/23/europe-wants-more-than-promises-from-american-tech",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-23T07:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fortune",
    "slug": "fortune",
    "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/10/23/europe-wants-more-than-promises-from-american-tech/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "European businesses are grappling with the extent of their control over the technology they rely on, particularly in the realm of American tech companies. This has led to a growing credibility test for these firms, impacting their competitiveness and trustworthiness. European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen has warned that European businesses must ensure no one has the ability to shut down their operations, highlighting a concern that increasingly affects European companies: what occurs if access to American technology supporting critical operations is disrupted by decisions made outside Europe?\n\nEurope's heavy dependence on US cloud infrastructure has prompted the Commission to transform these concerns into quantifiable requirements through its Cloud Sovereignty Framework. This framework evaluates providers based on 48 criteria encompassing legal control, data, operations, and supply chains. While initially developed for public procurement, the Commission urges private organizations to utilize the framework as well. Its proposed Cloud and AI development Act would further extend sovereignty assessments to public-sector cloud services, imposing stricter requirements for more sensitive uses. However, Virkkunen acknowledges that some of these stringent levels may prove challenging for American providers to achieve due to US legal constraints.\n\nFor American technology companies, this evolving landscape presents a burgeoning commercial and reputational challenge. As European customers gravitate towards understanding the guarantees providers can offer when political circumstances shift, businesses must grapple with the implications of their operational decisions on their credibility. Three key areas illustrate how these expectations are transforming: control over technology, the efficacy of provider commitments under pressure, and the substance of a company's presence in Europe.\n\nThe first area concerns the degree of control that European customers retain over their technology. In April 2024, a European consortium led by Belgian telecommunications firm Proximus secured a contract worth up to €180 million under the Commission’s sovereign cloud procurement program. The consortium leveraged services from S3NS, a French entity controlled by Thales that operates Google Cloud technology. This strategic placement enabled American technology to meet the Commission's sovereign cloud standards through a European operating structure. The distinction in sovereignty ratings between companies operating with American technology versus those employing local solutions underscores both the potential for American tech providers and the limitations imposed by ongoing dependencies.\n\nThe second aspect involves how providers respond when their commitments are tested. A notable example is Microsoft, which pledged in April 2025 to challenge any government order to halt its European cloud services through legitimate means, such as the courts. The company further arranged for this commitment to be legally binding in agreements with European national governments and the European Commission. Microsoft also detailed contingency plans, including continuity arrangements with European partners and secure backups of its code stored in Switzerland. For Microsoft, which safeguards vital services, these assurances offer clarity on existing protections and potential failure scenarios. While the company's commitment does not eliminate all possible disruptions, it provides customers with a clearer understanding of Microsoft's preparedness and the inherent limitations.\n\nThe third consideration relates to the practical presence of a company in Europe. The Commission's sovereignty framework evaluates the extent to which investments, jobs, and value creation remain within the EU and European Economic Area. While the framework serves as a public trust gauge, it also exerts pressure on companies to demonstrate meaningful local investment. Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer revealed a global preference for companies headquartered in their own countries over foreign-owned counterparts. In Germany, for instance, 63% of respondents trusted German-headed firms compared to 34% for those headquartered abroad. Respondents frequently cited long-term community investment and local hiring as key factors in earning the trust of distrustful populations. These insights highlight the importance of substantive local engagement for multinational corporations, particularly in meeting evolving expectations for European control and authenticity.",
  "summary": "European businesses are questioning how much control they have over the technology they depend on.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}