Calls for a ‘Eurostack’ are gaining support as a strategy to reduce dependence on foreign technology providers and boost digital competitiveness in the EU.
In this context, public procurement and coordinated action around public spending have also gained traction as key policy levers. The premise is that public spending can stimulate demand for EU-based alternatives across the stack, while stewarding local ecosystems towards strategic objectives.
A new white paper—Deploying the EuroStack: What’s needed now—outlines proposals for implementing the Eurostack. This Eurostack concept broadly aligns with our own position that the EU and Member States must move beyond rule-making and invest in public digital infrastructures as alternatives to non-EU and proprietary services and platforms.
A key contribution that the white paper makes to the ongoing debate is the ‘buy european’ approach:
“if we can strategically deploy public procurement to create adequate demand for capabilities supplied by the European digital industry, this will bolster European supply which is at present unable to ‘get a foot in the door’ and reach scale to compete”.
To achieve this, the white paper proposes several amendments to EU public procurement rules and public funding mechanisms, including:
- Establishing European purchase targets requiring public bodies to meet a “European quota” in contract tendering, with targets adapted to different technological layers.
- Prioritizing European SaaS solutions that can fulfill the public sector’s current operational requirements.
- Implementing dual sourcing requirements that mandate either at least one European supplier per contract or a European primary supplier with flexible secondary sourcing.
- Using pre-commercial procurement to fund capability development by potential suppliers and facilitate consortium-building for new commercial solutions.
The paper proposes a multi-part test to define a ‘European supplier’—encompassing organizations from EU Member States, EU candidate states, and European Free Trade Association members.
It also proposes complementing procurement rules with requirements related to prioritizing open source software, interoperability without vendor lock-in, data portability, and open standards. Additional conditionalities could also include maintaining jurisdictional control and requirements related to localization, transparency, security, and contributions to the European ecosystem. The objective of these proposals is also to steer private sector demand towards European suppliers.
Public spending is a key lever
The proposals in the paper meaningfully advance the conversation about leveraging public spending to reshape the digital economy and addressing public institutions’ dependence on foreign, proprietary technologies. Public authorities in the EU spend approximately €2 trillion (around 13.6% of GDP) annually on procurement. Channeling such spending towards strategic objectives and providing demand-side impetus to EU-based alternatives could foster a thriving digital ecosystem. In addition, the paper highlights critical building blocks for sovereign and interoperable cloud infrastructure, emphasizing open source and the digital commons.
The paper’s proposed conditionalities related to open source and interoperability can ensure that public investment doesn’t reproduce Big Tech’s extractive dynamics. Incorporating procurement conditions could further align investment with broader societal goals—including ensuring cloud infrastructure deployment aligns with climate imperatives.
Through pre-commercial procurement, public institutions can invest in the research and development of solutions before they become commercially available, rather than purchasing existing solutions. Multiple suppliers can be funded through a phased competitive process, including designing, prototyping, and testing. The approach entails distributed investment that also remains directed at addressing specific needs. Such procurement strategies can empower public institutions to shape innovation from the demand side and drive the development of alternatives that align with broader strategic objectives.
This mission-oriented, needs-driven strategy should inform the EU’s broader approach to funding digital technologies. As we have previously explored, programmes such as Digital Europe and Horizon Europe often adopt a technology-centric rather than problem-centric perspective. Drawn to narratives of disruptive technologies, they tend to focus on digitization for its own sake rather than addressing well-defined, strategically relevant needs.
Spending beyond the market
The white paper maps out important ways forward for the EU’s digital competitiveness and sovereignty ambitions. However, its “Fund European” recommendations—including the proposed Eurostack fund—primarily focus on channeling investment towards commercial initiatives and market-led solutions. This represents a narrow vision of public funding, limited only to commercial procurement and correcting market failures, while neglecting the development of robust public digital infrastructure. Such infrastructure serves essential democratic and social functions that cannot be left to market-based solutions, which typically rely on extractive and proprietary business models. In a similar vein, the paper acknowledges the relevance of digital commons, but falls short in emphasizing their crucial role in offering alternative models for provisioning and governing these infrastructures.
As we have argued in our response to the next Multiannual Financial Framework consultations, public investment should prioritize such essential digital infrastructure, including alternatives for widely used digital services that are monetized through data extraction. Many platforms essential for information dissemination, shaping public opinion, and democratic debate are premised on surveillance-based business models. This issue is particularly acute in the context of social media, where dominant platforms undermine democratic discourse, incentivising polarization, misinformation and harmful speech—all tied directly to their revenue models. Failing to safeguard the integrity and reliability of our digital public spaces weakens the resilience of the EU’s economy and societies.
Public digital infrastructures—built on sovereign, interoperable cloud infrastructure—can enable alternative ecosystems geared towards maximizing societal value, rather than perpetuating dependence on extractive, surveillance-based business models. This transformation requires channeling government and civic participation towards the production, funding, and control of interoperable infrastructures that perform such critical social and economic functions. Beyond market-based mechanisms, we may need instruments such as a dedicated Public Digital Infrastructure Fund to support publicly financed, independently governed solutions that serve the public interest.
Reshaping Public Investment in Digital Infrastructure
With the EU’s Procurement Directives in the process of revision, the Cloud and AI Development Act under development, and consultations related to the next Multiannual Financial Framework underway, the strategic deployment of public funds is at the forefront of digital policy discussions.
While mobilising private investment and stimulating demand for local alternatives is important, we still need publicly funded digital infrastructure. Achieving digital sovereignty will require fundamentally reimagining our digital infrastructures—focusing on interoperability, participation and collective benefit. As the EU marshals resources and support towards reducing foreign tech dependence, this is also a critical opportunity to strengthen the digital commons and foster digital public spaces.
