We were already familiar with Nutri-Score; now we have the EU Score. Behind this name lies a simple, objective framework that anyone can understand, designed to help people determine whether a piece of software is truly European. We met Olivier Rohou, its co-founder, to find out how this initiative came about and what practical changes it brings for businesses.
The problem: how can we tell what is truly European?
European digital sovereignty is on everyone’s lips. Yet, in practice, distinguishing a genuine European cloud solution from one that merely claims to be so can sometimes be a real struggle. Some tools are presented as European, even though they rely on infrastructure, shareholders or source code located outside Europe. Others capitalise on an image of neutrality without ever proving it.
It was precisely this realisation that led Olivier Rohou, a tech entrepreneur who had sold his company to a scale-up – 360Learning – to create the EU Score. The initial idea is simple but highly ambitious: to provide a common, clear and evolving framework for assessing the digital sovereignty of software.
Given US practices – such as the extraterritorial application of the law, the dominance of Big Tech and growing concerns about digital sovereignty – Europeans are seeking to disengage from US tech. And some players are capitalising on this desire for change to give the impression that they are European. The urgent need was to create a framework for analysis that would enable anyone — from tech specialists to the general public — to easily understand whether a solution is European or not, and to what extent.
The EU Score: Nutri-Score applied to tech
Nutri-Score, which has been rolled out in several European countries and is used by more than 250 million consumers, has demonstrated that a simple rating system can change behaviour on a large scale. The EU Score follows exactly the same principle and applies it to software.
In practical terms, each digital solution assessed is given a rating from AAA to C based on a number of objective and measurable criteria. The tool is available online at eu-score.tech and enables both businesses and individuals to look for European alternatives to the tools they use every day: from email and video streaming to cloud providers.
The 6 criteria explained
The rating methodology is based on six pillars, which are regularly updated by a supervisory committee comprising sector experts:
- Employees: Where are the company’s employees based? The proportion based in the European Union is a strong indication of the company’s genuine roots in the region.
- Shareholders: Who owns the company? A major investor based outside Europe poses a risk of strategic dependence.
- Digital subcontractors: What solutions does the company itself use? A company that preaches sovereignty whilst operating on Teams or AWS is sending out a mixed message.
- Servers: What is the cloud provider’s nationality? Self-hosting and hosting by a European provider are favoured. It is the cloud provider’s nationality that matters, not simply the physical location of the data, as this does not prevent third-country governments from accessing it.
- European values: Does the company uphold the CSR and diversity commitments defined as European values?
- Source code: Who maintains the code? Open-source software maintained by non-European organisations remains a dependency — this is what Olivier Rohou calls the’open-source washing.
Sovereignty washing: don’t be taken in any more
The EU Score addresses a well-documented phenomenon: the sovereignty washing. Tools marketed as “privacy-friendly” or “alternatives to GAFAM” are in reality backed by US capital, hosted outside Europe or dependent on source code over which they have no control.
The approach is neither a boycott nor protectionism. If a non-European office suite is essential for a company, the rating at least allows for an objective comparison of the available options and helps identify the one that best meets European criteria. Making an informed choice is already a step forward.
This isn’t about politics; it’s about transparency. The problem is that we’re still caught up in marketing that leads people to believe that solutions are designed for Europe, when that isn’t the case.
Today, to mark the anniversary of the EU Score association, the organisation is launching the EU Tech 300: a ranking of 300 European software-focused tech companies, divided into around 100 categories, designed to identify the solutions that will enable Europe to achieve technological sovereignty. A deliberate nod to the French Tech 120 — but on a European scale and with greater ambition.
Cloud Temple is ranked number one in the Cloud Computing category of the EU Tech 300 — a result of its long-standing commitment to a sovereign infrastructure certified as SecNumCloud by ANSSI.
And tomorrow? The ambitions of *Le Score*
The EU Score is a dynamic tool. A monitoring committee, organised by business sectors, countries and types of organisation, is responsible for proposing and voting on changes to the criteria. Among the parameters currently under consideration are: taking into account the volume of contracts awarded to non-European suppliers, in order to quantify in real time the financial flows leaving the European Union.
The longer-term aim is to extend the framework to hardware, and then to other sectors beyond the tech industry.
Cloud Temple, a SecNumCloud-certified digital sovereignty provider, supports businesses and organisations seeking to align their infrastructure with their digital sovereignty commitments.
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