Europe Moves to Neutralize US 'Kill Switch' Anxiety

Geo-Specific Europe Moves to Neutralize US 'Kill Switch' Anxiety Tech Companies Offer 'Fully Sovereign Disaster Recovery Pack' David Meyer • April 16, 2026     Share Post Share Credit Eligible Get Permission Image: stockcreations/Shutterstock Four European tech companies have banded together to provide a "fully sovereign disaster recovery pack" for companies in the region that want to hedge against the much-discussed possibility of the U.S. flipping the kill switch on its tech. See Also: Defending Identity in the Age of AI Attacks The quartet, comprising Luxembourg-based Suse, Italy's Cubbit and Elemento, and Bulgaria's StorPool, announced the initiative on Wednesday at the European Data Summit in Berlin. The package includes storage, multi-cloud orchestration, network, identity and observability elements - though there's no security component just yet. This stack can be immediately deployed on-premises. The companies claim it is compliant with two sets of EU cybersecurity rules - the finance-sector's DORA regulation and the critical infrastructure-focused NIS2 directive - as well as the GDPR data-protection regulation. Alessandro Cillario, the co-CEO of cloud object storage company Cubbit, said many companies, including large automotive manufacturers in Germany and big Italian banks, had expressed demand for such a bundle in the last six months or so, in order to protect themselves from a "disaster scenario." One concerned Italian executive was apparently inspired by Elon Musk's mid-2025 decision to temporarily cut the Ukrainian army's Starlink access - a move that severely hampered Kyiv's counter-offensive against Russian invaders at the time. Musk did the same thing to Russia earlier this year, with similar results for that side. With the second Trump administration frequently antagonistic toward Europe over a variety of geopolitical and policy issues, some fear the president could tell U.S. tech firms to similarly cut off European customers at some point. "The same concept [as the Starlink restrictions] applied to the cloud in Europe means we are all dead, but basically, unfortunately, we are not using as much European technology as we want," said Cillario at the Berlin event. "So what we built is a disaster recovery pack. It is just a first step, [making it] very easy for every company to move into a scenario that's European and it's based on our technologies combined." The stack - which one unidentified Italian service provider is already deploying, according to Cillario - comprises both open-source and proprietary components. Apart from Cubbit, StorPool offers high-performance storage, Elemento does multi-cloud orchestration and management, and SUSE is of course a longstanding player in the Linux and Kubernetes worlds. Other partners are apparently joining soon. Offering choices means boosting the resiliency of the stack, which can in turn improve the resiliency of users who no longer have to fear external threats, argued Holger Pfister, Suse's vice president for the German-speaking region of Central Europe. "We're in a very competitive and very troubled environment," added StorPool CEO Boyan Ivanov. "And Europe is a small boat in a very rough ocean… Unless we actually come together, we stand no chance." Network perimeter security may also be added to the package at some point, Elemento CEO Gabriele Fronzè told ISMG on the fringes of the event. Trump's slow but effective dismantling of the transatlantic alliance has stimulated Europe's biggest push for digital sovereignty since the bombshell espionage revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden some 13 years ago. Some states and agencies have begun moving away from U.S. software where possible, with the French government this month telling all its ministries to develop roadmaps for switching to European - and generally open-source - alternatives by the fall (see: France Tees Up Big Public Sector Move Away from US Tech). At the European Data Summit, there was much talk about how the European digital sovereignty efforts could be aided by better enforcement of laws such as the competition-focused Digital Markets Act, which among other things aims to force platforms to allow interoperability with their rivals. The announcement of the "disaster recovery pack" was a rare example of an actual product offering that could boost sovereignty - the launch of the Eurosky social-media infrastructure project, built around the same authenticated transfer protocol that powers U.S.-based Bluesky, was another. It's not just continental Europe that's worried, either. On Tuesday, the U.K.'s Open Rights Group published a report setting out the case for that country to follow the lead being set by France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and other European counterparts. "Reliance on foreign proprietary technology creates vulnerabilities to surveillance, espionage and cyberattacks. These risks are produced by foreign legal frameworks which govern both U.S. and Chinese technology companies," the activist non-governmental organization said. It also touted the economic opportunities for an industrial policy favoring native tech alternatives - a factor especially visible in French moves to cultivate local alternatives to U.S. companies. At the launch of the Open Rights Group report, Clive Lewis - a lawmaker from the governing Labour Party - said Big Tech's embedding in the U.K. public services has left the country "dangerously vulnerable." "With increasing geopolitical uncertainty as a result of U.S. and Israeli military actions, the U.K. must ensure that it has control over its critical digital infrastructure. Digital sovereignty must be a priority," Lewis said in a statement. Even in the cloud sector, where U.S. hyperscalers still rule and the EU's Digital Markets Act is yet to force practical moves towards interoperability, there are hints of big European players gathering strength (see: Europe's Quest for a Domestic Alternative to US Hyperscalers). Germany's Schwarz Digits - owned by the behemoth behind the Lidl and Kaufland grocery chains - is particularly notable on this front. Last month, it organized an event in Bulgaria at which innovation minister Irena Mladenova declared that "sovereign digital infrastructure is not merely a security instrument; it is a foundation for the development of high-technology industries, the growth of innovation ecosystems and the attraction of strategic investment." Clearly rattled, Microsoft on Tuesday published a blog post in which regional governmental affair director Tilemachos Moraitis insisted that true sovereignty "is about operational control under stress, not geography," and pointed out that his company services Bulgaria from nearby EU cloud regions, even if it doesn't offer a region in the country itself. "Across Europe, and increasingly in Bulgaria and the wider Adriatic region, digital sovereignty has become a board level topic for both public and private sectors," Moraitis conceded, before arguing that "this conversation is not about retreating from global technology ecosystems. It is about ensuring authority, resilience and continuity in a highly interconnected world."