{"id":297436,"date":"2026-02-14T08:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T08:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/297436\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T08:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T08:28:07","slug":"a-small-german-states-quiet-revolt-against-microsoft-and-what-it-means-for-europe-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/297436\/","title":{"rendered":"A small German state\u2019s quiet revolt against Microsoft \u2013 and what it means for Europe \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hanging in the air at this year\u2019s Munich Security Conference<\/a> is a new Schleswig-Holstein question. The term once applied to a prolonged 19th-century tug-of-war between imperial Germany<\/a> and Denmark<\/a> over the territory connecting the two kingdoms.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Schleswig-Holstein question is no longer about land, but is still about sovereignty: digital sovereignty. <\/p>\n

Put simply: if US president Donald Trump<\/a> takes against an EU<\/a> country, leader, judge or private person \u2013 and leans on US tech companies to block their email or web service access \u2013 is it wise for Europe to keep all its digital eggs in Microsoft<\/a> Office and Amazon<\/a> web server baskets?<\/p>\n

Schleswig-Holstein thinks not. The northern German state is just three-quarters the size of Leinster but, when it comes to digital sovereignty, it thinks big. <\/p>\n

Last October the state government allowed its licences to lapse on Microsoft 365, the popular web-based office suite. More than 40,000 civil servants, politicians and other public servants are now using free and open-source replacements for Word, Outlook and Teams.<\/p>\n

The one-off \u20ac9 million transition costs, officials say, compare favourably to the \u20ac15 million in licence fees it was paying to Microsoft annually. Those welcome savings are now being reinvested in local digital schemes, says Schleswig-Holstein\u2019s digital minister, Dirk Schr\u00f6dter, but far more is at stake.<\/p>\n

For him the long-planned move became even more timely after last year\u2019s drama<\/a> at the International Criminal Court<\/a> (ICC), where a US-sanctioned judge there was reportedly locked out of his Microsoft email and other web services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ICC case has demonstrated once more, unfortunately, how dependent institutions, governments and private companies are on proprietary software \u2013 often provided by just a few global technology corporations,\u201d he said, a dependency he views as an open flank given US attacks on the postwar rules-based order.<\/p>\n

\u201cState sovereignty today is no longer determined solely by military strength and the ability to enforce law and order domestically,\u201d he said, \u201cbut by the ability to steer, control and further develop digital systems and infrastructures and to be in charge of state data storage.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0US sanctions lock International Criminal Court judge out of daily lifeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Now that Schleswig-Holstein has effectively written the blueprint<\/a>, it has been inundated with inquiries from home and abroad about how it moved into the post-Microsoft era.<\/p>\n

The Microsoft 365 subscription service is hugely popular around the world, but the convenience of its web suite and cloud storage services comes at a monthly cost of at least \u20ac50 per user.<\/p>\n

Irish Government departments and the Oireachtas all use Microsoft 365 services but a spokeswoman said that commenting on arrangements or costs \u201ccould breach contract confidentiality and undermine the security architecture of our services\u201d.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s federal government, responding to a parliamentary question last week, said it spent \u20ac481 million last year on Microsoft licences \u2013 up 76 per cent in two years. One network technician with experience of Microsoft 365 says the platform\u2019s technical edge is what keeps it popular and near-ubiquitous, but at a cost: \u201cMicrosoft has jacked up the prices of late but, once you are in, there is little you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Except there is. Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> is shifting his chancellery away from Microsoft 365 to openDesk suite, advertised as \u201csovereign by design\u201d, and developed by German state agency ZenDiS, the Centre for Digital Sovereignty.<\/p>\n

While Microsoft locks down its software code to sell as a product or service, open source software like openDesk is available at no or low cost. Leaving code open to other developers, its adherents argue, boosts user autonomy, transparency and security.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Amiel, French minister for public services and reform. Photograph: Ludovic Marin\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Another prominent new adherent is David Amiel, French minister for public services and reform. Last week he promised to \u201creclaim digital independence\u201d with La Suite, an open source office and collaboration platform being introduced across the French public service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot afford the risk of our scientific exchanges, our sensitive data, and our strategic innovations being exposed to non-European actors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But how great is the risk? Microsoft insists that customer data in its web services and servers is so well-encrypted that not even the US company can access it. But some wonder if this is the case if US law-enforcement or intelligence demand data \u2013 even stored on European servers. <\/p>\n

As for the ICC stand-off, Microsoft denies it blocked any email access. Rather than fight it out, the court is switching to openDesk. This software suite incorporates a popular, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office \u2013 LibreOffice \u2013 whose recent converts include the Austrian military and some Danish government ministries.<\/p>\n

The Document Foundation, the organisation behind LibreOffice, sees \u201ca growing push to use public money for public code and to get away from lock-in by the tech giants\u201d.<\/p>\n

After years lobbying for open-source software in Europe, Document Foundation board member Paolo Vecchi says the ICC incident has flicked a switch in many official minds.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Breaking up is hard to do: Europe confronts end of the old orderOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are realising they need to have a plan B and move now and not when an incident happens to them,\u201d he said via Jitsi, an open-source alternative to Zoom and Teams.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan agrees that, even without any concrete threat looming against Ireland, it would be \u201cirresponsible not to ask whether our democratic institutions are adequately protected\u201d from pressures piled on by US tech companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe terrifying vista that has come to the fore, of sanctions imposed on Europe,\u201d said Geoghegan, \u201cmeans solutions are needed, and they lie within Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hanging in the air at this year\u2019s Munich Security Conference is a new Schleswig-Holstein question. The term once…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3468,72,969,5148,8864,292,61,45314,60,1071],"class_list":["post-297436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-amazon","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-european-union","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-ie","tag-international-criminal-court","tag-ireland","tag-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}