EU Eyes Ditching Microsoft Azure for France's OVHcloud

The European Commission is in advanced business negotiations with OVHcloud, the France-based major European cloud service provider, to transition its cloud services away from Microsoft, according to three senior sources with internal knowledge of the matter who spoke to Euractiv on condition of anonymity.

The infrastructure shift is being driven by a push for European digital sovereignty in the cloud market, following concerns raised by a US executive order that led to the shutdown of Microsoft services for an employee of a European-based institution.

The goal of the move would be to ensure that European institutions have greater control over their digital infrastructure and data – an idea that has been championed by the EuroStack initiative. It is also a blow for US tech behemoth Microsoft, which has been striving to reassure its European customers in the past weeks.

Once the European Commission "gets its house into order," it is expected to set a precedent for national public administrations to direct public procurement funds towards homegrown cloud providers, one source said. The Commission sees itself as a trend setter, they added, aligning with its broader strategy to enhance the EU's digital autonomy and reduce reliance on non-European tech giants.

We understand the Commission has been in discussions with OVHcloud for several weeks. However, an unknown number of other European cloud providers, including Germany's IONOS, France's Scaleway and Italy's Aruba, are also being considered as potential alternatives.

A unique aspect of this situation is that, for the first time, the two key digital departments of the Commission – DG CNECT, which drafts and enforces digital policies, and DG DIGIT, the IT department – are under the oversight of a single Commissioner (Henna Virkkunen) with a tech sovereignty portfolio.

This consolidation has made it easier to harmonise the political and technical priorities of the European executive, our sources told us.

"Discussions are indeed underway, both with the Commission and with other public and private institutions and organisations that are evaluating projects to migrate to a sovereign cloud," an OVHcloud spokesperson told Euractiv when we sought comment.

The Commission is "constantly scanning the market" and already "has a contract with OVHcloud" a Commission spokesperson said in response to Euractiv's request for comment. It did not confirm whether the Commission will actually switch away from Microsoft Azure.

In January, Euractiv revealed that the Commission was concerned about its reliance on Microsoft, quoting internal documents.

Additionally, the EU institutions watchdog, the European Data Protection Supervisor found last year that the EU's executive is in breach of data protection rules that apply to EU institutions over its use of Microsoft Azure cloud for some of its data.

(nl)