In 2025, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague decided to move its internal software system away from US tech giant Microsoft and onto an independent European open-source alternative provider. We wrote about it here.
We were very intrigued by what this would look like and how it could affect the whole of Europe so we were lucky enough to be speak to Maarten Roelfs (right), the founder of Office.eu.
Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, first of all, can you tell me a little but about the background to your creation of office.eu?
It is my pleasure! I am a serial entrepreneur who enjoys to participate in exciting ventures that offer markets and consumers better alternatives than before. Looking at how the world was changing the last couple of years, especially in the USA, the notion grew on me that we can do much better in Europe in standing up for who we are and how we want to live and work. In a way, the MAGA-movement made it quite easy for us to come up with the vision of office.eu, whereby we are quite happy with how we managed to claim this name and to get started early, since many politicians and organizations are now rather in need for what we have to offer.
The ICC’s real-world decision to abandon Microsoft due to CLOUD Act exposure and U.S. sanctions was behind some of the creation of Office.eu. In your view, do European organisations, and companies, especially those handling sensitive customer data for marketing, have an ethical duty to take a look and maybe switch away from non-sovereign platforms?
Yes I would think so, but way more important, and convincing, in our view is to make sensible business decisions. Ten years ago, it was common sense to invest in American Big tech. But reality changed dramatically, making it not safe nor wise anymore to remain dependent on key organizational resources that can be switched off just like that by a non-European politician. Or having sensible data being looked into by non-European institutions. We feel that these risks are beyond ethical considerations.
Office EU replicates the full suite of tools from Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace—including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, email, calendars, file storage, and video meetings—while running entirely on European infrastructure. What were the biggest hurdles in achieving seamless compatibility with existing file formats and workflows?
Finding people, time and money – which we managed. When we created our vision in 2025, we had a clear idea what Europe was missing and what was needed. However, we were, and are, a bit surprised how fast the geopolitical landscape changed since then. We know exactly what we want, and we are quite happy noticing how many individuals and organizations want the same. The challenge then becomes to implement like hell, which we are doing on a daily basis with a growing amount of great people and happy investors.
From an ethics standpoint, how should the industry evolve its standards, maybe through new codes of conduct, practices or certifications, so that people adopting sovereign tech becomes a marker of responsible, trustworthy business practice rather than a niche breaker of the norm?
Digital sovereignty should become a normal part of business ethics, like cybersecurity or privacy. Industry standards should require clear data ownership, transparency about where data is stored and which laws apply, portability to avoid lock-in, and resilience during vendor or geopolitical disruption. New certifications should test not just where a service is hosted, but whether it is truly protected from foreign access and technically interoperable. Codes of conduct should also require companies to explain risky dependencies. Once regulators, customers, and insurers treat sovereign tech as evidence of good governance, it will become a trusted standard rather than a niche choice.
I think I read AI is part of your plans for the future, is this something you have to create from scratch or is there an option to utilise other AI’s that don’t risk sovereignty or can be compromised?
Currently we are considering various options that indeed range from make or buy, in any scenario building on partnerships we already have. Our first priority is to get the basics of our suite up and running all across Europe. But we remain ambitious: we are planning to have AI fully integrated in 3rd quarter of 2026.
AI also brings with it other concerns such as water usage etc, is this something that as a company you’re looking into how to maximise efficiency and minimise impact?
A small company using AI can reduce its environmental impact by treating efficiency as part of good product design.The first step is to measure what matters: how much computing power, electricity, storage, and water use are linked to your AI systems. Even rough estimates help you spot waste.Then focus on using the smallest solution that still works well. Bigger models are not always better. Many tasks can be done with smaller models, shorter prompts, less stored data, and fewer repeated calculations. That saves energy and cost at the same time.A useful rule is this: every AI feature should create clear value for users and be worth the resources it consumes.
Looking ahead, Office EU is positioned as potentially sparking a wider movement toward European digital autonomy across productivity tools. What key milestones or indicators would signal that this shift is gaining real momentum beyond early adopters?
We feel that the transition is defined by a gradual move away from US-based hyperscalers toward European, sovereign, and GDPR-aligned alternatives, especially where sensitive data and critical services are involved. A key sign of real momentum is large-scale public sector adoption: when governments, schools, and municipalities begin deploying European-hosted open-source tools such as Nextcloud, LibreOffice, or Open-Xchange, the change is no longer niche. This is reinforced by public procurement rules that increasingly require sovereign cloud criteria and legal protection from foreign laws such as the US CLOUD Act.
Momentum is also visible in the market. European cloud providers like OVHcloud, Hetzner, Scaleway, STACKIT, and Open Telekom Cloud are gaining relevance, while GAIA-X is evolving from concept to operational data spaces that let European organizations exchange data securely. At the same time, the development of interoperability standards is reducing vendor lock-in and making it easier to move workloads between European providers.
Regulation is turning these ambitions into practical change. Certified sovereign cloud offerings are becoming more important because they promise not just local hosting, but protection from foreign surveillance laws.The clearest sign of mainstream adoption will come when private companies follow governments by choosing European cloud and cybersecurity solutions, building sovereign AI capacity, and adopting regional digital identity infrastructure such as the European Digital Identity Wallet expected by the end of 2026.
It feels like in many ways this could only happen at The Hague, how important do you think where the company is based has helped to shape the company and the ethics behind it?
Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe this was indeed supposed to start in The Hague, the city of peace and justice, where it was president Donald Trump who in May 2025 cut off the email access and froze bank accounts for the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague , making clear how vulnerable critical digital infrastructure can be. This risk has been visible for years, as many organizations rely on US cloud services for software and sensitive data storage. In response, the Dutch government has begun shifting from a “cloud first” to a “sovereign first” approach. The broader lesson is that digital sovereignty is no longer just a technical concern, but a matter of national security, resilience, and public trust.
What’s next for Office.eu?
We have a lot of work to do! First of all we are going to manage to onboard the almost 35.000 individuals and organizations who applied for the services of office.eu. as of May 2026. To maximise quality and customer satisfaction, we will do this gradually and in batches. The coming months we will launch the various apps and services we have listed on our website in a controlled manner. We will do this for applications all over Europe, and we are quite excited about the attention and demand we already received. This is a long term venture and we aim to become the preferred option for online collaboration for Small and Medium sized Enterprises in Europe. But before we get there, we are focusing on getting our services really started and getting Europe more digitally sovereign.
Thank you for your time.
Our thoughts
We find ourselves in a position that no-one asked for, and as Maarten said, it feels like this wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago, the world has changed and sadly it looks like things are more fragmented. Old alliances and partnerships do not hold in the way they used to and trust is strained. I think office.eu are at the vanguard of a movement that will see a change in how technology is used across borders, we will be watching this with interest. These moves will allow for countries and alliances to work to their own laws and ethically this could be a good move if countries are going down the path of looser ethics. It feels right that given this was highlighted in The Hague that the company is based there.
The opinions and views in this are the opinions of Maarten Roelfs.
Thanks to The Hague and Partners, Maarten Roelfs and Office.eu for their help in compiling and writing this article.
