Lobby-funded study estimates €115 billion cost for EU cloud proposal
The research excludes potential security benefits and relies partly on assumptions about how the rules would extend to private companies.
Europe could face costs of €115 billion from 2027 to 2036 under the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), a study by Brussels think tank ECIPE estimates. The research was funded by CCIA Europe, a lobby group with members including Amazon, Google and Meta.
Study author Matthias Bauer characterizes the estimate as “economic exposure,” rather than a full assessment of costs and benefits. The research does not assign a value to potential gains in security, resilience or strategic autonomy. Its alternative scenarios estimate €35.6 billion and €233 billion.
CADA would create four sovereignty tiers for public-sector cloud procurement. The lowest addresses establishment in the EU and where data is located. The upper two restrict control by non-EU companies, while the highest also covers control over software development, according to the Commission and the study.
Public bodies would make their selection through their own risk assessments, the European Commission says. It says non-EU providers could be recognized at the third tier and expects most of the market to remain open to its partners.
The study assigns about €33.3 billion to public budgets and about €80 billion to private businesses. The latter estimate assumes assessments would cover a quarter of relevant private cloud spending. Article 31 allows the Commission to ask companies in sectors including energy, banking, transport and healthcare for assessments like those undertaken by public bodies.
Software relocation and rewriting account for about 69% of the central estimate, the study says, while increased cloud prices represent about 30%.
