MEPs Draft Rules to Cut Foreign Cloud Reliance
Two MEPs want common EU cloud rules, faster data centre permits and public contracts that favour European providers. A committee vote is provisionally due in mid-March 2027.
Two MEPs presented a joint draft on the Cloud and AI Development Act on 11 November, calling for common EU cloud rules, faster data centre permits, and public contracts that favour European providers. It builds on a Commission plan from 3 June and is not yet law. Committees will discuss it on 1 December. A committee vote is provisionally planned for mid-March 2027, and a full Parliament vote for April.
What the draft would change
Diego Solier of Spain and Reinier van Lanschot of the Netherlands are leading the file for the Industry and Internal Market committees. In Parliament, that role is called rapporteur.
The Commission says three very large non-EU cloud companies, known as hyperscalers, control over 70% of the European cloud market. It also says EU providers' share fell from 29% in 2017 to 15% in 2022 and has stayed flat since. Those are the Commission's own figures.
It wants to at least triple EU data centre capacity within five to seven years, and to meet demand by 2035. Projects in special "acceleration zones" would get simpler permits. Solier said they must still follow environmental rules. Van Lanschot wants local people consulted first, and benefits for host towns, such as reused heat.
They also want one shared EU test for how sovereign a cloud service is. The Commission already proposed four levels for public bodies, from data stored in the EU up to full European ownership and control. The two lawmakers would keep those levels and spell out the conditions.
Van Lanschot said European firms "are not asking for subsidies, they are asking for customers," according to Euronews. The draft would use public contracts, known as procurement, to help European providers grow.
What this does not settle
The timetable is provisional. After the full Parliament votes, it would still need to agree a final text with EU governments. Parliament said the draft was due out on 12 November. On 13 November, its official record still showed no official draft posted.
Common rules and faster permits do not make the whole stack European. The data centres would sit in the EU. The chips may not. Think Tank Europa says the Commission's test covers location, ownership, security and subcontractors, but leaves chips out, and may apply ownership rules to only a thin slice of the market. That is the think tank's reading, not a Commission figure.
At Web Summit in Lisbon, German MP Thomas Jarzombek, a junior minister for digital affairs, said Germany should not try to build a fully sovereign AI system with its own models, infrastructure and full data control. "I don't think that makes any kind of sense," he said, according to Cybernews.
Whether this amounts to a sovereign stack is a later question.
Sources
- Proposal for the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) (European Commission, COM(2026) 502, 3 June 2026)
- Procedure File: 2026/0138(COD) (European Parliament Legislative Observatory)
- EU lawmakers push to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign cloud providers (Euronews, 11 November 2026)
- Parliament's co-rapporteurs seek common sovereign cloud rules and faster data centre permits (2eu.brussels, 11 November 2026)
- CADA: presenting the draft to build a digital Europe (Diego Solier, 11 November 2026)
- Data centres, AI and digital sovereignty: New EU proposal may close critical gaps but leaves Europe's wider dependencies intact (Think Tank Europa, 10 November 2026)
- Sovereign AI plan "makes no sense," German MP says (Cybernews, 12 November 2026)
Photo: "Bruxelles - Espace Léopold (23190915719)" by Fred Romero, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. The Paul-Henri Spaak building of the European Parliament in Brussels. Graded and overlaid by PSI.