Microsoft outage lasting nearly 24 hours renews European calls for digital sovereignty

A widespread Microsoft outage lasting nearly 24 hours and hitting millions of users across 74 countries struck on Friday as EU national leaders gathered in Dublin for their first-ever meeting dedicated to artificial intelligence strategy — immediately fuelling calls for Europe to control its own digital infrastructure.

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch, who addressed EU leaders at the Dublin summit, said only 20% of European digital services run on European infrastructure. Money spent on foreign — US or Chinese — technology "could be reinvested here, on infrastructure we control," he said. Mensch did not specifically address the Microsoft outage.

French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X that "our independence cannot be outsourced" and must be built in Europe, adding that Europe has everything it takes to compete on artificial intelligence and has no time to lose.

The shutdown of Microsoft tools including Outlook and Teams disrupted tech and government leaders attending the Dublin gathering. An EU diplomat present said Europe needs to "pick up speed, permitting and investment to compete on the world market, to have sovereignty."

Finnish European Parliament member Aura Salla called for government contracts to "support European technology." Sebastian Toffaletti, secretary general of the Digital SME Alliance, described the outage as a reminder of systemic risks created by concentrating digital infrastructure among a few global tech giants. In the UK, Liberal Democrat tech spokesperson Victoria Collins said the outage demonstrated the need for a digital sovereign strategy, adding: "We need urgent action to stop relying on a handful of companies." In Germany, Social Democratic Party lawmaker Johannes Schätzl said the incident raised questions about public procurement, adding that digital sovereignty must be measured by operational resilience during outages.

Tech sovereignty — covering cloud, chips and AI models — has been a declared priority of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's second mandate and was a key agenda item at Friday's Dublin summit.