Schleswig-Holstein, the most northern state of Germany, announced plans To abandon Microsoft’s productivity suite for open source alternatives by mid-2025, framing the decision to reduce both Digital dependencies and costs. But the reality is that the government favors political symbolism and cronyism – the opportunity to reject an American company while directing public funds to German companies – on a good assessment of its technological options.
Indeed, Schleswig-Holstein’s decision reflects a Growing European trend in the prioritization of digital technology carried out in Europeeven when these violent actions International trade agreementsincrease costs and offer less value. Rather than adopting digital protectionism, EU member states should adopt open purchase, based on evidence and non -discriminatory digital tools.
Many European decision -makers have recommended digital sovereignty—Butting links with foreign technology companies and replacing them with European alternatives. For example, The Minister of Digitization of Schleswig-Holstein justified his plans as essential to data security, arguing that he had “no influence … on data processing, including a possible data outing to third -party countries”. But this statement is simply false.
First, any service provider – whether foreign or national – must comply with the same data protection laws, including the German Federal Data Protection (BundesdatenschutzgeSetz or BDSG), which implements and extends the general EU data protection regulations (GDPR). The GDPR includes specific rules that restrict international data transfers to ensure the protection of personal data. Consequently, the transition to a national supplier has no impact on data protection.
Second, Germany, as in the rest of the EU, is part of the World Trade Organization, including its Agreement on Government Purchasing (GPA). GPA requires that the signatory nations provide non -discriminatory treatment to suppliers from other parts of GPA, which means that government supply processes must be opened, transparent and based on commercial considerations rather than the nationality of the supplier. Although the framing by Schleswig-Holstein of this decision is only on the “open-source” software can technically comply with the provisions of GPA, it seems to violate the spirit of the agreement using the open-source argument as a pretext to exclude an American company in favor of the Germans.
Third, Microsoft has a full set of protections for European public sector customers. In 2020, the company launched its “Defend your data»Program, which includes a commitment to legally challenge each government request for the public sector of corporate customer data. In 2023, Microsoft created his EU data limit Project to allow European customers to ensure that they store and process only their data within the EU.
More recently, Microsoft has unveiled additional “European digital commitments», Including an expansion of 40% of the European capacity of the data center, the legally binding promises to fight Blue in France And Delos in Germany. In other words, the German public sector can run Microsoft technology in German data centers managed by German staff. However, the response of the Minister of Digitization of Schleswig-Holstein to these extraordinary homes was to declare: “We finished with the teams!” This suggests that the decision does not concern the concerns of sovereignty – it is political posture.
While Schleswig-Holstein officials claim This will save “tens of millions of euros”, this projection is based on incomplete accounts – considering only license costs and ignoring the total substantial cost of property for open -source alternatives. Open Source software has legitimate advantages and use cases, but government agencies are still involved when they use it. These costs include internal or external computer support teams to replace supplier support, personalized development for missing functionalities, compatibility integration and maintenance, safety correction responsibilities and continuous training costs as the staff bearing occurs.
Historical evidence suggest that prudence is justified. Test alone can consume 60% of total conversion costs in complex public migration, while Training costs on average £ 1,600 per employee with significant hidden operational expenses. Munich’s experience Offers a particularly relevant history of prudence. After the pioneering adoption of the open source in the 1990s, the city reversed the course in 2017, citing operational costs in substantial progress and integration difficulties.
Schleswig-Holstein changes will allocate 30,000 civil servants and 30,000 teachers. Many of these users may have trouble unknown interfaces, strong learning curves and collaboration challenges due to interoperability problems, resulting in a drop in productivity through the government. These operational realities do not appear in initial budgetary projections but represent real initial expenses.
The German State’s decision reflects a broader European trend where decision -makers continue digital protectionism even in the face of substantial costs. For example, the law on digital markets and the law on digital services target American technological companiescausing European customers who pay between 43 billion euros to 71 billion euros more per year due to higher costs. Likewise, even if European regulators have continued disproportionately fines against American companies Under the GDPR, the law also has Imposed huge compliance costs On European companies – The research of the University of Oxford shows an average drop of 8.1% of the company’s profits.
Schleswig-Holstein’s decision seems to be more motivated by politics than the facts. By almost all metrics – data recovery, the maintenance of data in Germany or the value of taxpayers, respecting a leading world technology company with robust interior operations would be the best option. The adoption of digital protectionism is an expensive proposition which will not be likely to bear fruit for those who pursue it, especially when ideology prevails over the supply based on evidence. Whether you choose open source or commercial solutions, decisions should be based on a rigorous analysis of costs and advantages, not political favoritism.
Image credits: Pexels