The European Commission is strengthening the European Union's digital sovereignty by awarding a tender that allows EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies (Union entities) to procure sovereign cloud services for up to €180 million over 6 years.
The four awarded providers are European companies: Post Telecom with its partners CleverCloud and OVHcloud, StackIT, Scaleway, and finally Proximus, which partners with S3NS (a joint venture of Thales and Google Cloud), Clarence and Mistral.
This tender supports the Commission's broader efforts to enhance its own sovereignty, reinforcing strategic control across key technologies and infrastructure.
The awarded providers were selected based on their alignment with the Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework , which measures sovereignty across eight objectives. These include strategic, legal, operational, and environmental considerations, as well as supply chain transparency, technological openness, security, and compliance with EU laws. The Commission awarded four contracts in parallel to ensure diversification and resilience, avoiding over-reliance on a single provider. To be eligible, the providers had to reach rigorous assurance levels ensuring that non-EU third parties have limited control over the technologies the providers use, or services they provide.
Large-scale use of the EU cloud is a prerequisite for improving the EU's digital sovereignty. The Commission leads by example, as the Sovereign Cloud call for tenders sets a new benchmark for what 'sovereign' means in practice for cloud services.
The tender encourages the entire sector to comply with European standards and values. Its success highlights the high quality of European providers, demonstrating their ability to meet the Commission's strict criteria. It also shows that non-European technologies, when operated within a strict and appropriate framework, can meet the minimum level of sovereignty required.
Next steps
The Commission is finalising an updated version of the Cloud Sovereignty Framework that will include specific criteria to perform sovereignty assessments. This update is meant to support the entities that are willing to reuse the Commission's approach.
Internally, the Commission is working on adapting the developed sovereignty criteria to assess and enhance sovereignty across the digital services that it provides to its departments and other Union entities.
The Commission is also preparing the Tech Sovereignty package. This package will include the Open Source strategy, the Chips Act 2, the Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy, and the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA).
The CADA will harmonise what sovereignty for Cloud and AI computing services means across the single market. It will improve opportunities for sovereign cloud offerings, including through public procurement, and support the entry into the market of a more diverse set of cloud and AI service providers.
Background
The tender was launched as a competition under the Cloud III Dynamic Purchasing System (Cloud III DPS) in October 2025.
