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The German Association of IT SMEs takes a stand | Data sovereignty versus the US cloud: An economic turning point for Europe's digital economy

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Published on: December 16, 2025 / Updated on: December 16, 2025 – Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

The German Association of IT SMEs takes a stand | Data sovereignty versus the US cloud: An economic turning point for Europe's digital economy

The German Association of IT SMEs takes a stand | Data sovereignty versus the US cloud: An economic turning point for Europe's digital economy – Image: Xpert..Digital

US Cloud vs. European IT: An association warns against the sell-off of our digital future – those who entrust their data to third parties will ultimately pay with their competitiveness.

A turning point for small and medium-sized enterprises: Is this the great opportunity for Europe's IT sector to compete against the US giants?

The debate surrounding data sovereignty in Europe has reached a new level of escalation, evolving from a purely legal discussion into a central industrial policy issue. At the heart of the conflict lies the massive use of cloud and SaaS services from US providers by European companies and government agencies. While Europe has established a strict, fundamental rights-based data protection framework, these US providers are simultaneously subject to laws that allow US authorities access to the stored data. The German Federal Association of Small and Medium-Sized IT Businesses (BITMi) is now publicly positioning this as a significant security and sovereignty risk and is calling for a change of course.

BITMi's initiative is more than just a warning; it is a strategic attempt to translate political and legal risks into economic arguments in order to initiate an industrial policy shift. The demand aims to enshrine resilience, data sovereignty, and compliance with European law as decisive criteria in the awarding of public contracts. This is intended to trigger a state-regulated demand stimulus that will open up new market opportunities for the fragmented, medium-sized European IT sector, opportunities that are often denied to it in pure price and functional competition with global hyperscalers.

This conflict takes place against a broader geopolitical backdrop, in which digital infrastructures have become instruments of power, allowing states to exert economic and political influence. For Europe, which is strong in regulation but weak in creating globally dominant digital platforms, there is a risk of becoming technologically dependent and reducing its role from active shaper to mere “regulated consumer” of foreign technologies. The debate thus raises the fundamental question of whether Europe is prepared to accept higher short-term costs or functional disadvantages to maintain its digital sovereignty and avoid long-term dependencies and security risks.

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Classification of BITMi's position: Between legal risk and industrial policy opportunity

The initiative by the German Federal Association of IT SMEs (BITMi) to publicly label cloud providers with close US ties as a security and sovereignty risk is far more than just an association opinion in economic terms. It is a symptom of a fundamental structural shift in Europe's digital economy. At its core is not only the legal question of whether and to what extent US authorities can access the data of European users, but also the strategic question of who controls critical information infrastructures in a data-driven world.

The publication of the Cologne legal opinion on the US legal situation regarding global data access reveals a tension that has long been deliberately ignored or masked with political compromises: European companies and authorities extensively use cloud and SaaS services from providers directly or indirectly subject to US law, while at the same time Europe has a strict data protection framework focused on fundamental rights. The BITMi's finding that US authorities' access to European data remains a real risk is therefore less a legal revelation than a political-economic clarification.

Of particular economic relevance is the association's explicit demand to enshrine resilience, data sovereignty, and compliance with European law as key selection criteria for digital solutions in public authorities and administrations, while simultaneously strengthening the domestic digital economy. This amounts to nothing less than an attempt to trigger a politically regulated demand impulse that opens up market opportunities for medium-sized European IT providers, opportunities that would hardly be available to them under purely price- and feature-driven competitive conditions.

The situation is thus clearly defined: On the one hand, global hyperscalers and SaaS companies with massive economies of scale, high innovation speed, and close integration into the US legal system. On the other hand, a fragmented, predominantly medium-sized European IT sector, which, while having a regulatory advantage, often remains economically overshadowed by the US giants. BITMi's position is therefore essentially an industrial policy intervention: It attempts to translate legal and security risks into economic arguments that justify redirecting public and private IT demand in favor of European providers.

US legal situation and extraterritorial data access: Legal framework as an economic factor

The central significance of the report commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior lies in its confirmation that US authorities can, under certain conditions, demand data from companies, even if this data is physically stored in the EU. The decisive factor is not the storage location, but rather control over the company and its integration into US legal systems.

Various US laws with extraterritorial components—such as the Cloud Act and other security and law enforcement regulations—allow authorities to access data from companies that are based in the US or have substantial business activities, subsidiaries, or assets there. The report points out that these access possibilities are not limited to US companies in the strict sense. European companies with a significant presence in the US market can also be the target of such requests from authorities if pressure can be exerted through subsidiaries, shareholdings, or assets.

This makes the legal framework itself a competitive parameter. From a European perspective, companies that are structurally closely tied to the US face an inherent compliance and trust risk: even if they want to operate legally within the EU, they may encounter conflicting objectives due to US regulations. For particularly sensitive sectors – government administration, critical infrastructure, security-relevant industries – this risk will be difficult to ignore politically in the long term.

The economic significance lies in the fact that this extraterritorial access must not only be understood as an abstract threat, but as a permanent uncertainty factor that influences the calculation of compliance costs, liability risks, and reputational damage. The more regulatory requirements are tightened in Europe, the higher the opportunity costs rise when sensitive data is processed in environments subject to potential foreign access.

This creates a tension: On the one hand, US cloud providers offer enormous functional advantages, economies of scale, and innovative dynamism. On the other hand, from a European perspective, they pose a sovereignty risk that is difficult to calculate. The report makes this conflict of objectives transparent – ​​the BITMi intervention translates it into a political call to action.

Data sovereignty as an economic public good: Why storage location is political

The demand to enshrine resilience, data sovereignty and compliance with European law as decisive criteria when selecting digital solutions for public authorities and administrations addresses the core of an economic problem that is often underestimated in the debate: data sovereignty is not a purely technical detail, but a public good with significant external effects.

When government agencies, critical infrastructure, or systemically important companies outsource large parts of their data processing to environments subject to foreign legal and security regimes, dependencies arise that can cause high macroeconomic costs in the event of a crisis or conflict. These include not only the risk of unauthorized access, but also vulnerability to political blackmail, susceptibility to sanctions, and a loss of operational flexibility.

Economically, these effects can be described as negative externalities: The decision of individual authorities or companies to use a particular cloud solution typically considers primarily immediate costs, functionality, and implementation effort. However, the associated long-term sovereignty and security risks are borne not only by the decision-makers but by society as a whole. The result is underinvestment in sovereign, EU-compliant infrastructures because their added value is only partially reflected in the price.

This is precisely where BITMi's demand comes in: If resilience and data sovereignty become explicit award criteria, the public sector internalizes some of these externalities. The state would use its role as a major customer to create a market incentive in favor of solutions that are not only efficient in the short term but also sovereign in the long term. This corresponds to the pattern of classic industrial policy measures, in which government demand is used to promote the development of strategically desired technologies and supplier structures.

For the overall economic balance, it is crucial whether the potentially higher short-term costs of sovereign solutions are offset by long-term security, stability, and reduced dependence. Since the costs of a loss of sovereignty in a crisis are extremely high and virtually uninsurable, many arguments support factoring these risks into procurement decisions proactively. This makes the storage location of data and the ownership structure of providers genuinely political and economic issues.

European IT companies with a US presence: When internationalization becomes a compliance risk

A particularly sensitive point in the report and the BITMi argumentation based on it is the finding that even European companies with subsidiaries or extensive business relationships in the USA can come under pressure to disclose data stored in the EU. This shatters the intuitive notion that a company's headquarters in the EU and compliance with European law automatically protect against extraterritorial access.

From an economic perspective, this leads to a paradoxical situation: Traditionally, internationalization – especially market entry into the USA – is considered a step towards growth and professionalization, enabling scaling, access to capital, and innovation collaborations. However, in the logic of data sovereignty, this internationalization can become a risk factor. The stronger a European provider's US market presence, assets, or operational units in the USA, the greater the potential target for US authorities.

This creates a new balancing act for the strategic positioning of European cloud and SaaS providers: On the one hand, the US market is attractive due to its volume and prestige; on the other hand, too close an integration weakens their own profile as a sovereign, legally compliant service provider. From the perspective of discerning European customers, a provider with minimal US exposure may appear more attractive, even if it is smaller on a global scale.

This shifts the concept of competitiveness. Not only technological excellence, economies of scale, and innovative capacity count, but also geopolitical and legal positioning. A medium-sized provider with a clearly European ownership structure, limited US presence, and strict adherence to EU law can build a credible advantage in terms of trust compared to global corporations in certain segments.

The fact that BITMi explicitly emphasizes this point suggests that the association is attempting to turn a structural disadvantage – limited global presence – into a relative advantage. The limited presence in the US market is reinterpreted as an economic resource: in the association's view, it increases economic independence and legal security. This is strategically consistent, but also risky, as it relies on European customers recognizing the value of this independence and being willing to accept potential functional or price compromises in return.

Domestic digital economy in the shadow of hyperscalers: structural problems and opportunities

The more than 2,500 medium-sized IT companies represented by BITMi form the backbone of a segment of the European digital economy. Typical members, such as providers of CRM systems or industry-specific software for non-profit organizations, demonstrate the specialization and niche orientation of this sector. These companies operate in a market environment that, in recent years, has been increasingly dominated by global hyperscalers that use platform strategies to control entire value chains.

Economically, this imbalance can be described as an asymmetric market structure: on the one hand, a few extremely well-capitalized, integrated players with a platform-like character, and on the other hand, a multitude of small and medium-sized providers with limited resources. In such structures, markets tend to exhibit lock-in effects, network effects, and path dependencies, making it difficult for new or smaller providers to reach a critical mass.

Against this backdrop, the call to strengthen the domestic digital economy is not merely protectionist wishful thinking, but rather an expression of a real structural problem. Without targeted efforts, Europe risks permanently slipping into a position where it produces strict regulators, but the core value creation in the cloud and platform economy takes place outside the continent. The consequence would be continued dependence on key technologies, while regulatory requirements would simultaneously act as a cost factor for companies operating in Europe.

BITMi's demand to align award criteria and political strategies to strengthen European providers aims at a partial correction of this trend. However, it remains critical whether the domestic digital economy, in its current structure, is even capable of seizing the emerging opportunities. Many medium-sized IT companies are highly specialized and have limited capacity to provide infrastructure services on the scale of large cloud providers. Their strength often lies more in industry-specific applications, consulting services, and customer-centric integration projects than in providing scalable basic infrastructure.

This suggests a possible reorganization of roles: Instead of trying to copy the hyperscalers one-to-one, European providers could position themselves within an ecosystem built on sovereign base platforms and supplementing them with specialized, legally compliant, and industry-specific solutions. However, this requires the creation of such sovereign platforms and their political and economic support.

Economic evaluation of the sovereignty strategy: costs, benefits and conflicting objectives

The demand to prioritize sovereignty and resilience when selecting digital solutions inevitably implies conflicts of interest with other economic criteria. In the short term, globally operating US cloud providers offer significant cost advantages through economies of scale, sophisticated automation, and aggressive pricing models. Furthermore, they offer a high rate of innovation: new functions, security features, and integration options are released in short cycles, resulting in significant productivity gains for many companies.

If European authorities and companies increasingly rely on providers with a purely European ownership structure and minimal US presence, higher costs, limited functionality, or lower levels of automation are to be expected in many cases. The central economic question, therefore, is whether the gains in security and sovereignty can outweigh these disadvantages.

At the macro level, there are several arguments in favor of this. The costs of a severe sovereignty crisis—such as politically motivated access to critical data, a sudden restriction of services, or uncontrolled data exfiltration—would be enormous. Such events can shake trust in the state and markets, stifle investment, and destabilize entire industries. Risk economics therefore argues that preventive investments in resilience and redundancy can be rational, even if they appear inefficient in the short term.

At the micro level – that is, from the perspective of individual companies or public authorities – these arguments often seem abstract. The immediate pressure to cut costs, the shortage of skilled workers, and the desire to quickly implement modern digital services lead to a structural overestimation of short-term efficiency gains. This is where BITMi's appeal to policymakers comes in: Binding criteria and strategic guidelines should prevent individual actors from exacerbating long-term societal risks out of short-term self-interest.

Another conflict of objectives concerns innovation capacity. US hyperscalers invest enormous sums in research and development, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, and automation. European SMEs cannot simply replicate this pace and volume. An overly rigid sovereignty strategy could therefore lead to European users being cut off from technological developments if alternative European solutions fall significantly behind functionally.

The challenge, therefore, lies in finding a pragmatic balance: prioritizing sovereignty where risks are particularly high (state, critical infrastructure, security-relevant industries), while simultaneously promoting open interfaces, interoperability, and hybrid models that do not completely sever access to global sources of innovation. The BITMi position can be understood as a plea to shift this balance in favor of giving greater weight to sovereignty, without necessarily demanding a complete decoupling from US technologies.

 

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Data sovereignty instead of dependency: How Europe is strategically reorganizing its cloud future

Strategic options for EU policy and administration: From procurement practice to industrial policy

From the perspective of the public sector, BITMi's initiative opens up several areas for action. The most immediate area is procurement policy. If criteria such as data sovereignty, ownership structure, legal obligations, and physical and legal data location are systematically weighted in tenders for cloud and SaaS solutions, the competitive landscape changes. Providers who clearly position themselves as rooted in Europe gain a structural advantage.

However, such a realignment would only be effective if it were embedded in a broader industrial policy strategy. This includes promoting European cloud infrastructures that are consistently aligned with European law, for example in the form of regulated infrastructure providers or interconnected platform initiatives. Equally crucial is the promotion of standards and certifications that make data sovereignty and legal compliance transparent and comparable, so that contracting authorities can actually operationalize these criteria.

Another lever lies in regulation itself. The clearer and stricter European regulations become regarding data processing, access control, and the transparency of government requests, the greater the pressure on providers to structure themselves in a way that minimizes conflicts between US and EU law. This could lead to international corporations creating independent, legally separate European entities with their own governance and limited data sharing in order to continue participating in sensitive tenders.

The administration, in turn, needs to be strengthened both organizationally and in terms of expertise. Decisions about IT architectures, cloud strategies, and data processing can no longer be made solely from the perspective of individual agencies or IT departments. They require a comprehensive sovereignty strategy that combines technical, legal, and security expertise. Without this integrated perspective, there is a risk that sovereignty aspects, while rhetorically emphasized, will ultimately be sidelined in concrete projects due to time and cost constraints.

In the long term, consistently aligning public demand with sovereignty criteria could create a significant market for European providers. The crucial factor will be whether these providers are able to capitalize on the resulting opportunities with professional, scalable, and interoperable solutions that meet the needs of large public administrations. Otherwise, there is a risk that ambitious strategies will fail in practice due to the limitations of supply capacity.

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Medium-sized IT providers as sovereignty partners: Role models and business models

For the companies represented by BITMi, the current debate presents an opportunity to position themselves as strategic partners for data sovereignty and resilience. However, this requires a clear sharpening of their own profile and an adaptation of their business models.

Crucially, this requires a credible anchoring within the European legal framework. A clear, transparent ownership structure, headquarters and management within the EU, and a deliberately limited or strictly separated presence in third countries are becoming positive differentiating factors. Furthermore, the ability to offer technical and organizational measures that meet the requirements formulated by policymakers and administrators is essential – for example, encryption concepts, data localization, traceable access controls, and documented compliance processes.

Business models that have previously focused primarily on functional product advantages and price must be expanded to include a strong focus on trust and governance. Customers in the public sector and critical industries will increasingly value their providers not only being technically competent but also legally and organizationally robust. This requires investment in certifications, auditability, governance structures, and security personnel.

At the same time, the need to hold one's own in an innovation-driven market remains. Medium-sized providers cannot afford to pit sovereignty against technological backwardness. Rather, they must find ways to combine modern functionality, particularly in areas such as data analytics and artificial intelligence, with sovereign operating models. This can be achieved, for example, through collaborations with European infrastructure providers, open-source strategies, or modular architectures that allow for a strict separation of sensitive data processing from less critical components.

The examples of CRM providers and industry-specific software companies demonstrate that medium-sized businesses are particularly strong where specific industry requirements are understood and translated into tailored solutions. Combined with a clear sovereignty profile, this can become a compelling offering for associations, non-profit organizations, medium-sized companies, and public institutions seeking alternatives to global standard solutions.

European digital economy in a geopolitical field of tension: Autonomy, dependence and questions of power

The debate surrounding US data access and European data sovereignty is embedded in a broader geopolitical tension. Digital infrastructures have long since become instruments of power. States use platforms, cloud services, and digital ecosystems to exert economic influence, set standards, and, if necessary, build political pressure. For Europe, this means that technological dependence must increasingly be understood as a security policy risk.

Compared to the US and China, Europe has a structural peculiarity: it is highly regulation-oriented but lacks comparably dominant global digital platforms. While this regulatory focus has led to greater international attention being paid to issues such as data protection, competition law, and consumer rights, it simultaneously limits actual control over key parts of digital value chains.

In this context, BITMi's position can be interpreted as an expression of growing unease. If key data of European citizens, businesses, and institutions are processed in infrastructures that are ultimately subject to foreign legal regimes, Europe risks narrowing its role from active shaper to regulated consumer. The demand to strengthen the domestic digital economy and make sovereignty the guiding principle is therefore also an attempt to regain its own capacity to shape its future.

This is only possible, however, if Europe is prepared to act not only through regulation, but also through investment and strategy. Sovereignty comes at a price – in the form of infrastructure investments, innovation promotion, and the conscious prioritization of domestic suppliers in public procurement. At the same time, such measures must not lead to isolation. Europe remains dependent on international cooperation, knowledge exchange, and competition to strengthen its innovation base.

The challenge lies in establishing a digital ecosystem that embodies European values ​​such as data protection, the rule of law, and competition protection without becoming technologically isolated. Securing sovereignty over particularly sensitive data and critical infrastructure can be defined as the core zone of sovereignty, while less critical areas can continue to be highly open to global offerings. However, the boundary between these zones is politically contested and will shift with technological developments.

Economic risks of ignoring sovereignty issues: From compliance traps to innovation blockages

The deliberate or negligent ignoring of the risks resulting from close reliance on US cloud providers poses a number of economic dangers for European companies and institutions. One obvious risk concerns compliance. If a company processes data of European customers in systems that are potentially subject to access by foreign authorities, it can face a dilemma in the event of a conflict: complying with a foreign order could violate European data protection or trade secret law, while refusal could lead to legal consequences abroad.

Such conflicting objectives are not only legally problematic but also pose a high economic risk. They can lead to fines, claims for damages, lengthy legal proceedings, and massive reputational damage. Companies that fail to address this issue and develop clear risk mitigation strategies are, consciously or unconsciously, gambling on political and regulatory stability. In a world of growing geopolitical tensions, this is an increasingly risky game.

Furthermore, there are potential obstacles to innovation. If sensitive data is no longer fully processed, analyzed, or networked due to fear of unauthorized access or legal uncertainties, the ability to develop data-driven business models and AI applications suffers. Companies could be forced to choose between innovative cloud and AI services and strict risk avoidance. Without robust yet efficient alternatives, an innovation bottleneck threatens.

In some sectors, the consequences of such blockages can be significant. Healthcare, the financial sector, critical infrastructure, and security-related industries rely on advanced data analytics and automation to increase efficiency, quality, and security. If these developments are hampered for sovereignty reasons, long-term competitive disadvantages arise compared to players in regions where sovereign digital infrastructures and high-performance cloud services are not mutually exclusive.

The more economically rational option is to create structures early on that combine access to modern digital technologies with a high degree of sovereignty. This includes building trustworthy infrastructures, clear legal frameworks, transparent responsibilities, and robust governance structures. The BITMi intervention can be seen as a warning signal that the time when sovereignty concerns could be dismissed as exaggerated or secondary is over.

Balancing act in everyday business: Practical strategies between US cloud and European sovereignty

For individual companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the question arises as to how to translate the political and legal debates into practical strategies. A complete shift away from US-based cloud and SaaS services is neither realistic nor economically sound for many businesses in the short term. At the same time, pressure is growing from customers, regulatory authorities, and the public to protect sensitive data with particular care.

A pragmatic approach is to segment data and applications according to their criticality. Highly sensitive data—such as personal data in particularly sensitive categories, security-relevant operational data, or confidential research and development information—can preferably be processed in infrastructures that are clearly embedded in European law and have the lowest possible exposure to extraterritorial access. Less sensitive data, such as publicly accessible content or operational data with low protection requirements, can still be processed in international cloud environments, provided that appropriate technical and organizational measures are implemented.

Another option involves hybrid architectures, in which core systems are operated sovereignly within the EU, while additional services or analytics functions are connected to external clouds but strictly decoupled from sensitive data. However, this requires companies to possess sufficient architectural expertise or to outsource this expertise to service providers. It also necessitates clear internal guidelines, regular risk analyses, and close coordination between IT, legal, and business departments.

For companies with existing dependencies on US providers, it can be beneficial to plan exit strategies and alternative approaches in the medium term, avoiding hasty short-term steps. This includes examining data portability, prioritizing open interfaces and standard formats, and consciously choosing providers for new projects that better meet sovereignty requirements. The goal is to gradually reduce dependencies and expand options, rather than becoming permanently entrenched in proprietary ecosystems.

The role of associations like BITMi can be to consolidate best practices, provide guidance, and act as an intermediary between companies, policymakers, and regulatory authorities. Political positioning thus becomes the basis for concrete guidelines that translate abstract sovereignty debates into operational reality.

Long-term perspective: Data sovereignty as a location factor and competitive advantage

In the long term, data sovereignty can become an independent location factor for Europe. If a digital ecosystem can be established that combines high data protection standards, reliable legal frameworks, and sovereign infrastructures with functional efficiency and innovative strength, a profile will emerge that distinguishes Europe from other regions of the world. Companies that value trustworthy data processing—for example, in healthcare, industry, or finance—could consciously choose Europe as a location because the combination of the rule of law, data protection, and technical expertise is particularly attractive here.

Current debates surrounding US data access and extraterritorial laws demonstrate that trust in digital infrastructures is not unlimited. Users, businesses, and institutions are increasingly weighing the options when deciding who to entrust with their data. Regions and providers that can credibly demonstrate a high level of protection, both technically and legally, can gain a competitive advantage.

It is important not to confuse data sovereignty with isolation. An attractive digital location is characterized by being both secure and open: secure in handling sensitive data, and open to innovation, international cooperation, and competition. Europe has the potential to find such a balance if it uses the current discussions to develop bold yet nuanced strategies.

The BITMi intervention and the accompanying report mark a potential turning point in this development. They make it clear that sovereignty is no longer a secondary aspect of technical decisions, but rather a central steering criterion for digital transformation. If policymakers, administrators, and businesses take this message seriously, structures could emerge in the coming years that reduce Europe's digital dependencies and strengthen its economic freedom of action.

Crucially, this process must not only focus on risks but also seize opportunities: opportunities for an innovative, medium-sized business-driven IT sector, opportunities for new business models centered around trustworthy data spaces, and opportunities for positioning Europe as a global benchmark for responsible digitalization. Data sovereignty would then no longer be primarily a defensive strategy against foreign access, but an active building block of an independent, future-proof digital economy.

 

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