Non-paper strengthen cloud sovereignty established

The non-paper "Strengthening cloud sovereignty of public administrations" has been adopted in the Council of Ministers. With this paper, the Netherlands advocates a number of measures at European level for the use of cloud technology by public administrations. These measures should contribute to more action at EU level when it comes to strengthening cloud sovereignty. A non-paper is a document to explore ideas on future policy.

Required actions

To ensure that EU governments become more independent in their use of cloud technologies, the EU needs to take several actions. For example, the non-paper calls for the development of a unified definition of cloud sovereignty. And that there should be more opportunities to guide sovereignty in European procurement guidelines. Here the use of open applications and standards is encouraged. There is also the proposal to develop an assessment framework at the European level. This can help governments make conscious choices for the use of public cloud services. For these technologies, it is important that sufficient funding opportunities are available.

Alignment with EU proposals and Dutch Digitalization Strategy

The non-paper follows the European Commission's forthcoming proposals on cloud: the recommendation "EU-wide cloud policy for public administrations and procurement" and the legislative proposal "Cloud and AI Development Act. Both proposals are expected in early 2026. It also aligns with the ambitions of the Dutch Digitalization Strategy (NDS). In this, the national government, municipalities, provinces, water boards and implementing organizations are working together on a secure and reliable digitale overheid.

View the non-paper on our international website www.nldigitalgovernment.nl(link to other website).

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