Europe Prepares for a Microsoft-Free Future by 2031
The European Commission is working on a technological sovereignty package to ensure that no foreign platform remains technically, contractually or legally irreplaceable. This means that Europe wants to have a credible exit option in case it needs to survive without any particular technology.
The current focus is on Microsoft Office, which is no longer just Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Microsoft 365 suite binds those applications to Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Entra ID, Intune, Defender, Purview, Power Platform, Microsoft Graph and Copilot. Together they form an institutional operating environment that users cannot easily replace.
The European Commission's June 2026 technology-sovereignty package combines the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, Chips Act 2.0, an EU Open Source Strategy and an energy-sector digitalisation roadmap. The objective is to treat cloud capacity, AI infrastructure, open software and semiconductor resilience as part of the same strategic system.
The Commission has also introduced a Cloud Sovereignty Framework containing 48 criteria grouped into eight categories, including strategic, legal, data and AI, operational, supply chain, technological, security and compliance, and environmental sustainability. This framework will be used to measure procurement effectiveness and ensure that cloud providers meet European sovereignty requirements.