EU Sovereignty Summit

The cooperation between Bleu and Delos Cloud, along with the Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft, marks a step towards Europe's digital sovereignty. They signal greater resilience, joint crisis management, and an exit option in the event of geopolitical risks. This makes it clear that the strategic direction is correct. However, it is not yet clear how the cooperation will be implemented organizationally and technically. Migration to the Delos Cloud also raises questions: it would be complex, time-consuming, and would not cover all Microsoft services. The agreement provides a theoretical safeguard, but the practical framework conditions have yet to be defined.

The announcements expand the solution space for regulated industries that want to use modern technologies. The viability of these measures in an emergency will only become clear once concrete processes and scenarios are established.

Decision-makers from government, business, and society came together at the EU Sovereignty Summit on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, to discuss the guardrails of Europe's digital future. In addition to many high-ranking speakers, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron also presented their positions on Europe's digital future. Another highly acclaimed speech was given by Dr Karsten Wildberger, Minister for Digitalization from the Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernization (BMDS). He called for more innovation and less regulation.

The topic of digital sovereignty is also on Microsoft's mind. The functional scope of the public cloud offering "Azure" has been adapted in recent months to meet the requirements of European customers. For example, the EU Boundaries have enabled complete data processing within the European Union since this year. Microsoft also offers the "Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty". The "MCfS" gives organizations from countries without a National Cloud Offering the opportunity to use Azure in a regulated model.

To meet the specific requirements of public administrations in France and Germany, two individual projects were launched a few years ago as "National Clouds": the Delos Cloud for Germany and Bleu for France.

The Delos Cloud offers a secure cloud solution for public administration customers, meeting the criteria set by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The cloud platform is provided in its entirety, both legally and organizationally, by the SAP subsidiary, Delos Cloud GmbH. Microsoft supplies the technology, which has been tested and approved by the BSI, and is operated by Arvato Systems as a Delos Cloud Operations partner. The functional scope of the platform encompasses Azure and Office 365 services, providing a curated service catalog tailored to the challenges of German administration.

A similar model is the French equivalent: under the name Bleu, the mobile communications group Orange and consulting partner Capgemini are providing a national delivery model for Microsoft cloud infrastructures that meets the requirements of regulated authorities. In contrast to the German offering, the group of eligible users is larger.

The managers of Bleu and Delos Cloud have taken the EU Sovereignty Summit as an opportunity to intensify cooperation between the projects. The managing directors of the respective organizations announced this. According to the press release from Walldorf, the primary objective is to collaborate in crisis and emergency scenarios. In addition to activities in the event of damage, the aim is also to identify potential scenarios at an early stage jointly. This would strengthen the resilience of the offerings in particular. Additionally, the operations and technology teams of both offerings would collaborate to establish concrete processes that support the respective administrations during times of crisis.

The Delos Cloud managers used the exceptional setting of this event to make a further announcement: Together with Microsoft, an agreement was published stating that the Delos Cloud can also be used by customers from the public sector and regulated industries in the event of a crisis. More specifically, the Delos Cloud will be used as a platform if non-European governments prohibit the use of American cloud technologies. In practice, this possibility is realized by giving the Delos Cloud the necessary rights to own the required implementation.

The collaboration between Bleu and Delos Cloud is a logical step, as both platforms share the same technological foundation and exhibit synergies in terms of cybersecurity and operational resilience. However, the concrete added value of the collaboration can only be assessed once it is clear how the partnership will be organized. A significant portion of the functional quality of the IT security architecture for cloud services relies on the automated exchange and processing of information. For example, emerging attacks abroad can be detected by the platform. If an attack subsequently occurs in a European Azure region, the pattern used is recognized, and the infrastructure responds appropriately.

The most significant benefit would arise if such an exchange were also established between the two platforms. This would enable the expansion of prevention capabilities and the ability to respond to and ward off cyber threats in real-time. The desire to work together in crisis and emergency scenarios is also only logical and correct. What remains exciting and critical to success is how transferable and individual the respective operating processes are.

If both countries are struggling with major geopolitical issues simultaneously, it is obvious that they should support each other. European solidarity would then have to be put into practice.

Through this agreement, Microsoft is establishing a pragmatic mitigation strategy for risks associated with the use of the Azure Cloud. However, here too, the devil is in the details: it would be interesting to know the requirements and lead time for migrating to the Delos Cloud. In view of the comprehensive system landscape that an administration operates to handle tasks, a complete migration would involve considerable effort, resource utilization, and duration. In practice, this is unlikely to be realistic if the existing landscape no longer remains available for long enough. Additionally, the Delos Cloud only maintains a subset of Microsoft Cloud Services, indicating that further adjustments and developments may still be required. In fact, this agreement seems to make the Delos Cloud a realistic target for an exit strategy.

Although the announcements made by the three companies are more pragmatic than revolutionary, they demonstrate that Microsoft has understood the needs of its customers. The regulated industries in European countries continue to seek ways to utilize modern technologies to accomplish their tasks. Microsoft and its partners have now expanded the solution space.