European Union member states, led by Germany and France, are stepping up efforts to develop native alternatives to software from US data-analytics giant Palantir Technologies Inc., as concerns grow over deep-seated public sector reliance on the company’s platform.

According to a report by Politico, when German and French security officials unveiled plans last month to build a “European sovereign digital infrastructure,” technology and defense sector experts on both sides of the Atlantic widely viewed the initiative as a direct move against Palantir.

Across Europe, an increasing number of government officials are seeking substitutes for the Denver-based firm, which has embedded its software into some of the continent’s most sensitive operational domains, ranging from local policing and global intelligence to national defense and public health networks.

However, severing ties with Palantir to achieve greater digital autonomy presents severe operational hurdles. The company’s tools have become deeply integrated into everyday administrative workflows, backed by a level of data-processing expertise that few domestic competitors can match.

Philippe Latombe, a French advocate for digital sovereignty, compared the stickiness of Palantir’s platform to “sugar in Coca-Cola,” noting that the firm’s entrenched position makes disengagement exceptionally difficult.

“Palantir is capable of processing massive amounts of data with great precision, and thanks to its experience, it has had the opportunity to refine its algorithms and adapt them to various use cases with numerous clients,” Latombe said.

Despite these entanglements, efforts to break away from Palantir are gaining traction across the continent. In Madrid, the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has instructed state-backed companies to exclude Palantir from future public procurement contracts. In Paris, France’s domestic intelligence agency, the Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI), opted for French firm ChapsVision over the US provider.

In the UK, the next major test of this policy shift is expected in February 2027, when the Labour government will face a decision on whether to terminate a £330 million contract with Palantir for the National Health Service (NHS) Federated Data Platform.

Rivals exploit European pushback

The decision by French and German intelligence structures last month to select ChapsVision dealt a dual setback to Palantir’s leadership.

Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp reacted sharply to the sudden turn away from his company’s products, while insisting he was unconcerned by European competitors.

“There is an example of what doesn’t work. Its name is Europe,” Karp said.

Olivier Dellenbach, CEO of ChapsVision, told Politico that his firm was benefiting from what he described as a “visceral rejection of Palantir” in parts of Europe.

However, Dellenbach emphasized that he did not want ChapsVision to be viewed merely as an “anti-Palantir” substitute, arguing that digital sovereignty will remain an empty slogan unless European governments back it up with industrial policy.

“We need more public procurement,” Dellenbach said.

Meanwhile, other European defense contractors are seeing increased interest in their proprietary platforms. According to Patrick Moreau, one of the architects of a data solution developed by French aerospace and defense group Thales SA, military authorities in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Romania, the Netherlands, and Canada have expressed interest in the French Army’s Artemis AI system.

“They all want to be able to choose a sovereign solution compatible with NATO standards, as opposed to Palantir’s black box,” Moreau said.

Yet even officials advocating for domestic substitutes concede that the European market remains fragmented, with local vendors still lacking the scale and operational track record of their American counterpart.

Military entrenchment and political friction

The challenge of replacing Palantir is particularly acute in the defense sector. Admiral Pierre Vandier, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, told Politico in recent months that the alliance possesses no viable operational alternative to Palantir’s battlefield artificial intelligence technology.

A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive capabilities, said Palantir’s platform has unmatched capacity to process vast arrays of satellite imagery to identify targets, recommend strike weaponry, calculate required ammunition quantities, and automatically generate replenishment orders.

“To my knowledge, Palantir has no real competitor today,” Vandier said in May.

This deep integration has fueled sharp political pushback from critics concerned about the company’s leadership and ideological stance. Aurélien Saintoul, a French lawmaker who authored a parliamentary report on foreign military dependencies, criticized the influence of Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.

“Peter Thiel explains that the defense of freedom does not necessarily require democracy. He clearly puts technical tools at the service of his own political project, and here we are talking about technofascists,” Saintoul told Politico.

A spokesperson for Palantir, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed such characterizations as “absurd,” noting that similar accusations had recently been leveled against the firm by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Pointing to the company’s ongoing operational support for the Ukrainian armed forces, the spokesperson said: “We know which side we are on and who we stand with. Since our founding, the protection of privacy and civil liberties has been the foundation of how we conduct our work in both public and private sector institutions. Western politicians should think deeply about who the real enemy is and not become puppets of the Kremlin.”

Many of the company’s European critics maintain that the pushback is driven primarily by technological sovereignty rather than political ideology.

They argue that displacing Palantir from the continent’s security architecture is a necessary test case for broader technological independence. If European governments fail to replace a software provider, critics say, hopes of reducing reliance on US tech giants for underlying cloud infrastructure and hardware will prove unrealistic.

From crisis management to long-term contracts

Palantir established its presence in Europe long before the current boom in artificial intelligence, pursuing a growth strategy centered on deploying its software during national emergencies to demonstrate immediate value to governments.

In France, Palantir entered the market following the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, as security services faced intense scrutiny over intelligence failures. The DGSI signed its initial contract with the data analytics firm in 2016.

A similar pattern unfolded in Germany, where Palantir’s first major deployment occurred in Frankfurt, the financial hub of the state of Hesse. In 2017, state police acquired Palantir’s Gotham platform, deploying it under the name hessenDATA as a core tool for connecting disparate data points in criminal investigations.

Germany remains deeply divided over the technology. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has pushed to expand Palantir’s footprint, introducing draft legislation intended to create a framework for broader federal use. However, the initiative has encountered resistance from coalition Social Democrats and senior security officials.

The same “crisis-to-contract” model was deployed in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Louis Mosley, head of Palantir’s UK operations, the firm’s relationship with the NHS began during the health crisis, when it offered data aggregation services for a nominal fee of £1.

By contrast, Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, phased out Palantir’s Gotham platform after using it from 2016 to 2021.

A Europol official stated that the agency’s decision was driven by practical considerations rather than ideology, noting that the platform was expensive, raised sovereignty concerns, and left the institution reliant on Palantir for technical updates.

The official questioned whether every public body requires a platform as comprehensive as Palantir’s: “[Palantir] is really good when you have massive amounts of data and want to connect everything. But that is not the case for us. In most cases, alternatives are close enough. If we used it, I am not sure our efficiency would increase significantly.”

Expanding footprint across defense and corporate sectors

Part of Palantir’s operational strategy in Europe has involved recruiting former officials from target government departments. Investigative outlet OpenDemocracy reported that Palantir hired four former UK Ministry of Defence officials prior to securing a £240 million contract with the department.

The company is currently expanding its defense footprint across the region. On July 1, Palantir’s Maven Smart System—originally developed for the US Department of Defense—achieved full operational status within NATO, securing authorization to run on the alliance’s classified networks to link command and control systems.

“I think this is a very important turning point for European defense,” Mosley said.

Palantir’s reach extends beyond government agencies into major European commercial enterprises. In 2015, aircraft manufacturer Airbus SE integrated Palantir’s Foundry platform as the foundation of its aviation data infrastructure. Automaker BMW AG, energy giant BP PLC, and German media group Axel Springer SE also utilize Foundry to manage operational data.

Even if European entities succeed in reducing their reliance on Palantir, the company’s deployment model—which pairs software with embedded technical personnel—is being widely replicated by major US technology firms competing in artificial intelligence.

On June 30, Amazon Web Services announced a $1 billion investment to establish a “Forward Deployed Engineering” division designed to embed engineering teams directly within client organizations. Days later, Microsoft Corp. unveiled a $2.5 billion plan to deploy 6,000 engineers and domain experts to customer sites. Both initiatives mirror the operational model pioneered by Palantir.

Whether European institutions can transition away from Palantir is now viewed as a benchmark for the continent’s broader digital policy.

Hannah Neumann, a German Green Party member of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence, emphasized the political stakes of the debate.

“European public institutions cannot become dependent on software developed by a small circle of US tech billionaires with an uncertain political worldview,” Neumann said. “That would be like outsourcing part of the democratic state to a private intelligence service that is accountable neither to voters nor to parliament.”

EU governments are moving to overhaul the “Made in Europe” concept—one of the most politically sensitive provisions of the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA)—in favor of a legally precise framework grounded in trade agreements and product-specific market access.

Under the plan, member states aim to replace the broad “Made in Europe” definition originally drafted by the European Commission. According to the latest EU Council compromise document, prepared by the Irish presidency last week and obtained by Politico, national governments are introducing a new “partner origin” category. This classification will govern when goods from non-EU nations are deemed equivalent to European products in public procurement and state-support programs.

Rather than assuming all free-trade partners share identical status, the proposal distinguishes between products covered by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement and those governed by the EU’s standalone free-trade or customs union agreements. Whether a specific product qualifies will depend not merely on the existence of a trade deal, but on the bloc’s actual procurement commitments regarding that specific good.

The Council’s compromise seeks to reshape the Commission’s initial two-tier approach, which granted the EU executive broad discretion to determine whether countries with public procurement and free-trade agreements qualified. That permissive interpretation raised prospects that nearly 80 countries could gain eligibility, sparking deep concern in member states such as France over the breadth of access. By contrast, Industrial Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné had previously suggested that the “Made in Europe” club might be restricted to as few as 20 nations.

To assert control, the Council’s text proposes utilizing implementing acts rather than delegated acts. This procedural shift ensures EU member states retain a formal vote on adding or excluding third countries, allowing them to evaluate whether those nations grant reciprocal treatment to European products or pose risks regarding strategic dependencies and security of supply.

The overarching objective of the IAA is to deploy public resources and single-market leverage to shield energy-intensive industries, net-zero technology providers, and the automotive sector from “unfair foreign competition.” This strategy includes using public procurement to privilege products that satisfy domestic-content rules or qualify for “Made in Europe” preference.

For the framework to function operationally, the Commission will need to maintain product-specific lists of eligible countries through its Access2Markets portal. The Council proposes that contracting authorities relying on this database to determine procurement scope will not be found in violation of EU law solely because of errors present in the public portal.

In a critical adjustment to Chapter III of the IAA—which establishes the definition of EU origin—the Council has introduced the concept of “melted and poured” to determine the origin of steel products. This modification aligns the legislation with existing rules, including the tightened EU steel import quotas that took effect last month.

In Annex II of the draft text, the Council retains mandatory European-content thresholds for steel, cement, and aluminum. However, it introduces a contingency allowing the 2029 enforcement date for these thresholds to be postponed if the relevant delegated acts and technical specifications are not finalized at least six months in advance.

This conditional delay signals potential slippage in the implementation timeline for the IAA. Combined with provisions in the draft regulation that have been shifted from mandatory to optional status, the changes demonstrate how far the Council has diverged from the Commission’s original proposal ahead of upcoming negotiations with the European Parliament.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for the regulation to be adopted by the end of the year. However, with the Commission’s initial proposal delayed and rewritten before its eventual publication in March, the Council still making substantial amendments, and the Parliament not expected to finalize its position until September, the legislative timeline remains extremely tight.

Denmark has accelerated steps to bolster its military capacity, citing security risks in the Arctic region stemming from the US and Russia, alongside the environment created by the war in Ukraine.

According to Reuters, the country has conscripted approximately 1,600 new recruits for an 11-month term of service under its updated conscription regulations.

The new service term coincides with preparations to deploy conscripted soldiers to Greenland for the first time in Danish history.

Under the plan, more than 100 conscripts will assume operational duties from professional military personnel stationed in Greenland.

The newly conscripted soldiers will undergo five months of basic training, followed by six months of operational service.

Conscription in Denmark is conducted through a lottery system involving all 18-year-old men who meet medical fitness criteria.

However, the Danish armed forces rely primarily on volunteers for their military personnel.

Under a policy decision adopted in 2024, the Danish government extended the military service period from four months to 11 months and expanded mandatory conscription to include women for the first time.

According to Reuters, Copenhagen aims to increase its annual intake of recruits from 5,000 to 7,500 by 2033.

In addition to Denmark, mandatory military service is enforced in regional neighbors Sweden, Finland, and Norway, as well as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Military planning regarding Greenland took shape following statements by US President Donald Trump concerning the island. Trump’s remarks advocating the annexation of the island were rejected by the governments in Copenhagen and Nuuk.

Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen declared that her country was prepared to defend every inch of the alliance, “including its own territory.”

Trump’s rhetoric regarding Greenland intensified once again during the winter months of this year.

Arguing that Denmark was unable to secure Greenland—an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark—Trump asserted that the island was essential to US national defense.

Trump further claimed that the island was surrounded by Russian and Chinese vessels.

In statements made in May, US Ambassador to Copenhagen Kenneth Howery reported that the US president had abandoned the concept of seizing the island through military force.

However, Trump reiterated his demand for the island in July, stating that Washington required Greenland.

Trump later claimed that Greenland could come under US control by January 2029, marking the end of his second presidential term.

Meanwhile, Commander of Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command in Greenland Søren Andersen stated in January that the Danish military presence on the island was focused not on a potential military threat from the US, but on possible Russian activities.

Andersen added that the long-term objective of the mission carried out by European NATO allies in Greenland was to “keep Russia at bay.”

The NATO mission referenced by Andersen, named “Arctic Sentinel,” aims to reinforce the alliance’s military presence in the Arctic region, expand maritime patrols, and counter Russian and Chinese activities in the area. The permanent operation was officially announced on February 11, 2026, when it was initiated.