In January 2026, France launched its digital sovereignty observatory. In 2026, the European Commission set official criteria for calling a cloud provider “sovereign.” That same year, four member states teamed up to build a shared digital infrastructure. It is concrete, it is structured, it is serious.
And yet, according to the Cigref 2025 study, 80% of cloud and business software spending in Europe still goes to American firms.
After 15 years of effort and billions invested.
That number is worth pausing on. Not to criticize Europe, but to understand what it tells us about how hard the real problem is. And above all, to decide how we want to tackle it on our side.
What Europe understood first
The European Union has invested heavily in cross-border collaboration projects. The goal, as stated, is not only to break free from the big American platforms. It is more ambitious: to develop global standards for a digital sovereignty that belongs to everyone, not to a few.
It is a vision I saw take shape on trips to Europe, at events where digital sovereignty was not a conference concept. It was an operational priority. Organizations with protocols, tool choices, internal policies. Not an aspiration, a practice.
What Europe learned the hard way is that billions invested and policies adopted do not necessarily change behaviour. Institutional willpower is not enough when a habit has been in place for 20 years.
That is where it gets useful for us.
What some organizations actually did
Some French cities decided to act. They pulled Microsoft tools out and replaced them with open-source alternatives: NextCloud for storage and collaboration, Mattermost for internal messaging, LibreOffice for office documents. Real, documented migrations, not pilot projects.
That is no small thing. These were serious decisions, with dedicated resources and clear political will. And they worked, in the sense that they were carried through to the end.
But here is what those organizations also learned along the way:
Sovereign alternatives demand technical skill to run well. NextCloud does not configure itself. Mattermost needs a competent administrator to stay stable. LibreOffice creates friction with partners who stay on Microsoft Office, and that is still the vast majority of organizations.
The motivation has to be strong to break free from the big platforms. It is not impossible. But it is not free either, in money or in organizational effort.
Why this matters to us, as Quebec SMBs
We don’t have the budgets of French cities. We don’t have the IT teams of large European organizations. And we don’t have 15 years to devote to a transformation project.
But we can take something concrete from their experience.
The first lesson is that digital sovereignty is not a matter of will. Europeans had plenty of it. What moved things forward was method. What held things back was the lack of a clear sequence.
The second lesson is that “which tool do I replace” is the wrong starting point. The organizations that do best start differently. They first ask a more fundamental question: what do I have, and what am I protecting?
The real question to ask
Before you talk about alternatives to Microsoft or AWS, you need to answer a few simple questions:
Which data is critical to my organization? Who has access to it? Where exactly does it live? With which provider, under which contract, with what exit terms?
Most of the SMB leaders I meet have not answered these questions. Not because they don’t care, but because they have never had the chance to stop and ask them systematically.
That is not a reproach. It is an observation. And it is the most useful starting point.
Once you know what you have, you can decide what to protect first. Some data deserves immediate attention. Some can stay in the current environment with no significant risk. And some tools can be replaced gradually, on a realistic two- to three-year plan, without promising a full migration in six months.
What we can take from the European path
Europe showed us something important: good intentions are not enough. What moves things forward is method.
We don’t have to repeat their mistakes. We don’t have to spend 15 years and billions on a project that misses its target. But we have everything to gain by learning from their experience, taking what works and avoiding what gets stuck.
For an SMB, that translates into a pragmatic approach:
First, an honest map of what you have. Which tools, which data, which providers, which dependencies. Not to change everything overnight, but to see clearly.
Next, a priority on what is sensitive. Client data, financial information, strategic communications. Those are the first things to protect, before you think about tools.
Finally, a realistic plan. Not a promise, a plan. With steps, resources, and expectations that match the reality of the organization.
It is not spectacular. But it is what works.
Digital sovereignty is not just for large organizations
That may be the biggest lesson of the European path. The most ambitious projects, backed by governments with considerable resources, stumbled on the same obstacles as any SMB: habit, friction, the complexity of change.
What sets apart the organizations that make progress is that they do not start with the goal of replacing everything. They start with the goal of understanding what they have. And they move in the right order.
It is an approach within reach of any SMB. It does not require an infrastructure budget or a dedicated IT team. It requires a method and the decision to start.
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Sources: Euractiv FR, European Commission and sovereign cloud criteria, March 2026. Comptoir Open Source, La souveraineté numérique, un enjeu stratégique pour l’Europe (Digital sovereignty, a strategic issue for Europe), March 2026. Cigref, study on cloud and business software spending in Europe, 2025.
