Even before Azure’s global outage earlier this week, Austria’s Ministry of Economy had already made a major move toward achieving digital sovereignty. The Ministry successfully transitioned 1,200 employees to a Nextcloud-based collaboration and cloud platform hosted entirely on Austrian infrastructure.
This migration marks a deliberate move away from proprietary, foreign-controlled cloud services like Microsoft 365, in favor of an open-source, European alternative. The decision mirrors a broader European shift—where governments and public agencies aim to retain control over sensitive data while reducing dependency on US tech providers.
Supporting this shift is the EuroStack Initiative, a non-profit coalition of European tech companies promoting the idea to “organize action, not just talk, around the pillars of the initiative: Buy European, Sell European, Fund European.”
Explaining Austria’s rationale, Florian Zinnagl, CISO of the Ministry of Economy, Energy, and Tourism (BMWET), stated:
“We carry responsibility for a large amount of sensitive data—from employees, companies, and citizens. As a public institution, we take this responsibility very seriously. That’s why we view it critically to rely on cloud solutions from non-European corporations for processing this information.”
Austria’s example follows a growing list of EU nations and institutions, such as Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein state, Denmark’s government agencies, the Austrian military, and the city of Lyon in France. These entities have all adopted open-source or European-based software solutions to ensure that data storage and processing remain within European borders—strengthening data security, privacy compliance under GDPR, and protection against foreign surveillance.
Advocates like Thierry Carrez, General Manager of the OpenInfra Foundation, emphasize the strategic value of open infrastructure:
“Open infrastructure allows nations and organizations to maintain control over their applications, their data, and their destiny while benefiting from global collaboration.”
However, not everyone is pleased with Europe’s digital independence push. The US government has reportedly voiced concerns, with American diplomats lobbying French and German officials ahead of the upcoming Summit on European Digital Sovereignty in November—an event aimed at advancing Europe’s digital autonomy goals.
Despite these geopolitical tensions, Austria’s migration to Nextcloud was swift and effective—completed in just four months. The Ministry had already started adopting Microsoft 365 and Teams but chose to retain a hybrid system: Nextcloud for secure internal collaboration and data management, and Teams for external communications. Integration with Outlook and calendar tools was handled through Sendent’s Outlook app, ensuring minimal workflow disruption and strong user adoption.
Not all transitions have gone as smoothly. Austria’s Ministry of Justice, for example, faced setbacks while switching 20,000 desktops from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice—a move intended to cut licensing costs. Reports described the project as an “unprofessional, rushed operation,” resulting in compatibility issues and user frustration.
The takeaway is clear: successful digital transformation requires strategic planning and technical support. Austria’s Ministry of Economy proves that, with the right approach, public sector institutions can adopt sovereign cloud solutions efficiently—balancing usability, speed, and security—while preserving Europe’s vision of digital independence