About Sovereign Shift
We are a team of solution architects, engineers, and legal counsel building Europe's path to digital independence.
Who we are
Sovereign Shift is a team of solution architects, software engineers, and legal counsel with over a decade of combined experience across startups, open-source organisations, law firms, and Big Tech.
We started this practice because we saw a gap. European organisations know they depend on US-controlled technology, but most have no realistic picture of how deep that dependency goes or what it would take to change it.
We provide that picture. Then we help you act on it.
Why we exist
Europe’s digital infrastructure is overwhelmingly controlled by a handful of US corporations. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and a few others mediate the email, identity, storage, collaboration, and cloud operations of millions of European businesses and public institutions.
That creates a concentration of control that carries real risks:
- Legal exposure. The US CLOUD Act gives American authorities the power to access data held by US companies regardless of where it is stored, creating a direct conflict with GDPR and European data protection principles.
- Operational fragility. When a single vendor controls your identity, email, storage, and collaboration, a policy change, sanctions decision, or service disruption can freeze your entire organisation overnight.
- Strategic dependency. European businesses and governments are building their digital future on foundations they do not own, cannot inspect, and cannot influence.
What drives us
We are motivated by a growing body of EU policy that recognises digital sovereignty as a strategic priority:
- NIS2 Directive (2023). Requires EU organisations in essential and important sectors to implement rigorous cybersecurity risk management, including supply chain and third-party dependency assessments.
- DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act, 2025). Mandates that financial entities in the EU manage ICT third-party risk, including concentration risk from critical cloud providers.
- EU Data Act (2024). Establishes new rules on data portability and interoperability, making it easier for organisations to switch cloud providers and avoid vendor lock-in.
- Gaia-X. A European initiative to create a federated data infrastructure based on European values of transparency, sovereignty, and interoperability.
- European Data Strategy. The Commission’s broader vision for a single market for data, where data can flow securely within the EU under European rules.
These regulations are the foundation for a Europe that controls its own digital infrastructure. We help organisations act on them.
How we work
We are vendor-neutral. We hold zero affiliate agreements and zero reseller commissions. When we recommend a European alternative, it is because it fits your situation.
Every finding we produce is labelled with its evidence basis:
- Observed. Backed by public or customer-provided evidence.
- Inferred. Reasoned with an explicit confidence label.
- Unknown. Gaps called out, never hidden.
We believe in phased, realistic migration. Some dependencies are easy to replace. Others are deeply embedded and should not be touched until the prerequisites are clearer. Our job is to help you tell the difference.
Where we are
Utrecht, Netherlands. We work with organisations across the European Union.