Overview
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron are set to host the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty in Berlin on Tuesday with about 900 participants.
- The meeting focuses on reducing geopolitical risk from dependence on foreign IT services, with a particular emphasis on U.S.-based cloud platforms.
- Germany’s government-backed Center for Digital Sovereignty warns that the CLOUD Act and FISA 702 can compel U.S. providers to disclose data even when stored in Europe.
- BSI president Claudia Plattner urges technical safeguards such as end-to-end encryption and user control of cryptographic keys to make unauthorized access infeasible.
- A Bitkom study finds nine in ten German firms use cloud services and 78% view reliance on American providers critically, while business leaders say comparable large-scale European options are still lacking.