However, the ministry said in the remarks, the Polish digital tax would not be “aimed at entities from any specific country.”

“It is intended to apply to all relevant market participants.”

As it stands, Warsaw intends to introduce a 3 percent digital tax rate on companies whose global revenues exceed €750 million, effectively targeting larger U.S. tech companies. The goal of such a tax is to ensure that tech companies “generating revenue from the Polish market pay fair taxes in Poland.”

Earnings from the tax would be used to support the development of Polish technology and the creation of quality Polish media content.

As the President of the United States, I will stand up to Countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies. Digital Taxes, Digital Services Legislation, and Digital Markets Regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology. They also, outrageously, give a complete pass to China's largest Tech Companies. This must end, and end NOW! With this TRUTH, I put all Countries with Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations, on notice that unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as President of the United States, will impose substantial additional Tariffs on that Country's Exports to the U.S.A., and institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips.

Der Technologiekonzern Microsoft will im August ein Rechenzentrum in Niederösterreich in Betrieb nehmen. Es ist aus Sicherheitsgründen auf drei Standorte im Raum Schwechat (Bezirk Bruck/Leitha) aufgeteilt. Eine Milliarde Euro investierte der Konzern.

et according to independent ICT expert Bert Hubert, such initiatives, while admirable, represent little more than digital window dressing.

“These are quite suitable if you’re a pigeon racing association and want to put your pigeon racing association website there,” he said. “But if you come along saying, ‘I’m Rabobank and I want to outsource my banking operations to you’, you’re not going to engage with a hosting provider that says, ‘We have an offer for €5 per month’.”

The harsh assessment reflects a broader reality facing Europe’s digital sovereignty ambitions: the chasm between political rhetoric and technological capability has never been wider.

As American cloud providers such as AWS announce new European entities claiming sovereign operations, the question becomes whether Europe’s homegrown alternatives can ever bridge the gap between aspiration and enterprise-grade reality.

Sovereignty is the absence of strong dependencies on third parties. The Sovereign Cloud from AWS is a misnomer here.