EU: AI and Cloud Contracts Reserved for Europeans

The EU Strengthens Its Technological Sovereignty with Reserved Contracts

The European Commission has announced a new initiative aimed at reserving certain public contracts in artificial intelligence and cloud services for European providers. This move is part of a broader plan to enhance the technological sovereignty of the European Union.

Priority for European Providers

The Vice-President of the Commission for Digital Affairs, Henna Virkkunen, explained the importance of this measure. She specified that, in critical sectors, it is essential for services to be provided by European companies. However, she emphasized that this restriction will only apply to a limited number of contracts.

In most cases, non-European companies will still be able to participate in the provision of digital services in the public sector. However, member states will be required to demand sovereignty guarantees from AI and cloud providers for public contracts.

Sovereignty Requirements and "Kill Switch"

The new requirements will be organized into four levels. They will range from a general obligation to store data in Europe to enhanced requirements for the most sensitive sectors, such as security and defense. Henna Virkkunen stressed the need to maintain control over services and data in Europe to prevent a foreign provider from disabling services via a "kill switch."

This technical device, an emergency switch, would allow a provider to cut access to a service without notice. The EU fears that foreign providers could use such devices in the event of a geopolitical crisis, which justifies reducing dependence on non-European providers in critical sectors.