“Public procurement is a powerful economic lever for Europe. It can fill companies’ order books, but also help us achieve our objectives of social cohesion, the green transition, innovation and sovereignty,” he also said.
O'Callaghan pressed the government on whether it had considered alternatives to Microsoft. "There are a number of alternatives out there that other European countries and states are moving towards," he said. "They are doing so for value-for-money reasons, and so they are no longer technologically dependent on the US but can rely on European-regulated services and products. There is LibreOffice, Collabora Online, Open-Xchange, Nextcloud, Thunderbird and openDesk by Germany's Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität der Öffentlichen Verwaltung, ZenDiS, which is a readily assembled government-grade suite."
https://www.zdnet.com/business/switzerland-replaces-microsoft-365-open-source-opendesk/
European sovereignty push
https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/1wflce8/switzerland_is_spending_more_than_11_million_to/ Switzerland is spending more than $11 million to move away from Microsoft 365 and switch to open-source software.The first step will cover 3,000 government computers, with the switch expected to be completed by the end of 2027.The plan could grow much larger. Switzerland has about 54,000 government computers and may eventually switch all of them. https://cybernews.com/tech/switzerland-microsoft-opendesk/
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1wfv63o/eu_parliament_ready_to_take_tougher_line_on_china/
EU Parliament ready to take tougher line on China, says lead MEP
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-parliament-harder-line-on-china-pascal-canfin/
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/henna-virkkunen_we-have-awarded-a-180-million-tender-for-activity-7450806469697900544-pAmY
https://eurostack.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/combined-german-eurostack-letters.pdf
https://eurostack.eu/thegermanletter/
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/euro-stack_eurostack-letter-to-de-leadership-activity-7432742973827805185-Uql9
The European Commission (EC) awarded the €180 million tender for sovereign cloud to the four European providers
https://europeansting.com/2026/04/20/commission-awards-e180-million-tender-for-sovereign-cloud-to-four-european-providers/
Don’t get fooled by “European Sovereign Cloud” offerings
https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1qj1em5/dont_get_fooled_by_european_sovereign_cloud/
what about these ones ?
The important update: these projects are actually converging. A recent Dutch analysis describes the three national stacks as sharing many of the same components — Nextcloud, Element/Matrix, Collabora, OpenProject, etc. — while differing mainly in integration, identity and UX
The French, the Germans and the Dutch are each building their own sovereign workspace. La Suite is beautiful, as ever. openDesk is well engineered and gloriously feature rich. MijnBureau ties the best of both together, because of course it does.
https://www.conduction.nl/academy/blog/la-frankendesk/
Cross-project note: the systems are converging on shared building blocks — Nextcloud, Collabora, Element/Matrix, OpenProject show up across all three national stacks, with the differentiation increasingly happening at the identity/integration/UX layer rather than core components.
There is even active discussion about using OpenConext/federation to connect identity systems while allowing each country to retain its own identity provider and governance.
2026 watchlist: openDesk , Euro-Office , MijnBureau ,La Suite ,Office.eu commercial traction.
Peste 500.000 de tineri din România nici nu muncesc, nici nu studiază. De ce are România recordul negativ în UE la acest capitol
O cincime dintre tinerii din România care au între 15 și 29 de ani nu au mers anul trecut nici la școală, nici nu au avut vreun loc de muncă, arată statisticile oficiale. În cifre absolute, înseamnă aproximativ 570.000 de persoane. Statistica UE spune că situația e asemănătoare și în 2025.
https://romania.europalibera.org/a/tara-in-service-jumatate-de-milion-de-tineri-romani-nu-munesc-si-nu-studiaza/33514634.html
Tranziția tinerilor români între sistemul educațional și piața muncii
https://www.cpag.ro/reports/transitioning-romanian-youth-neets
Un milion de tineri nu au un loc de muncă și nu urmează un curs de formare. Marea Britanie are o problemă.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/02/young-people-job-training-jobless-britain-problem
https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1w64961/literallyi_dont_know_what_i_want_but_i_know_i/
openDesk: Germany’s Open-Source Office Suite Goes National; What other governments can learn; Built from best-in-class European open-source components, Germany’s openDesk is moving from pilot to national rollout — a landmark in public-sector digital sovereignty; IMO - Assemble rather than reinvent.
Federal government licensing fees for products from Microsoft and other
US tech companies
https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/21/054/2105413.pdfhttps://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1170242
8,475 open desk licenses in production operation
cu Zendis pentru „soluții de comunicare și colaborare suverane” precum OpenDesk.Suita de birou federală OpenDesk face progrese în forțele armate; Bundeswehr este forța armată a Republicii Federale Germania, cu aproximativ 183.000 de angajați, dintre care aproximativ 80.000 sunt civili. Pe lângă ramurile militare tradiționale - armată, forțe aeriene, marină și spațiul cibernetic și informațional - Bundeswehr include și ample domenii organizaționale civile. https://www.ossdirectory.com/en/clients/details/bundeswehr