EU sovereign cloud: a EUR 180 million tender and new proposals

Published · By Dazr

The Commission awarded a sovereign cloud tender to four European providers and proposed a Cloud and AI Development Act with one EU sovereignty framework.

In 2026 the European Commission turned "sovereign cloud" from a slogan into procurement criteria, first for its own purchases and then in a proposal for the whole single market.

The sovereign cloud tender

On 17 April 2026 the Commission awarded a tender that lets EU institutions, bodies and agencies buy sovereign cloud services for up to EUR 180 million over six years. Four European providers won a contract each, so that no single provider becomes a dependency:

The bids were assessed against the Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework, which measures sovereignty across eight objectives: strategic, legal, operational and environmental aspects, supply chain transparency, technological openness, security and compliance with EU law. Each objective is scored on assurance levels from SEAL-0 (no sovereignty) to SEAL-4 (a full EU supply chain). Providers needed at least SEAL-2 to be eligible; the Commission reported SEAL-3 for the Post Telecom group, STACKIT and Scaleway, and SEAL-2 for the Proximus group. The Commission is preparing an updated version of the framework that other organisations can reuse.

The Tech Sovereignty Package

On 3 June 2026 the Commission proposed a package with two legislative proposals, the Cloud and AI Development Act and the Chips Act 2.0, plus an Open Source Strategy. The Cloud and AI Development Act aims to triple data centre capacity in Europe in five to seven years and to introduce a single EU-wide framework to assess cloud and AI sovereignty. The Open Source Strategy includes procurement guidelines to help public administrations use open source. The proposals now go to the European Parliament and the Council.

Why it matters for buyers

Public bodies and companies that want to reduce dependency now have a concrete yardstick. Useful questions for any provider: where the data and the operations are, which law applies to the company and its parents, who can access the service, how you can leave with your data in open formats, and which parts of the supply chain sit outside the EU.

Sources

For information only, not legal advice. Last updated 19 October 2026.

Topics: Digital sovereignty, Cloud, EU

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