Surely there would have been mumblings in certain sectors of the EU since the first Trump administration?

It’s just that they started to execute now?

embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There been mumblings for as long as I've been a developer, I remember hearing about "EU data independence" first when the ePrivacy Directive came around, which must have been multiple decades ago at this point.

But yeah, in recent times the sentiment became more urgent. If I were to guess, with zero data in front of me and just judging by what I remember, I think the sentiment really changed first with the ICC blockade that happened last year, then it got really fueled on by the US threats to Greenland's sovereignty, I think that's when organizations and people really got stressed out about moving ASAP.

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spockz 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Around me, the threat to Greenland is what kicked the plans from “okay what mitigations should we envision?” to “alright, let’s go as far to actually run shadow ops to get acquainted with …” to full on move after the invasion.

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vanschelven an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Trump may genuinely end up being the best salesman European hosting companies ever had. I run one of the tools mentioned in this post (Bugsink) and I literally had an uptick of Danish people/companies (specifically) reaching out to me after Davos.

	▲	embedding-shape an hour ago \| parent [-]
		As someone who've basically started being known as "The guy who helps you move data out of US to Europe" in certain circles, I'm not complaining either :)

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pjc50 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, that was the thing that set off all the alarms. Trump 1 said a lot of things but had not completed the Hungary-fication of the US. Trump 1 was also before the Ukraine war!

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palata 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I feel like the concern started getting popularised during the first Trump administration, because the US were overtly bullying the EU (and others of course). But the main change was that it was done overtly: before that the US has always been a big power trying to... say "defend the interests of the US" abroad. E.g. the US have been spying their allies forever. So I think it was more of a "they should stop bullying us in a few years", and indeed it went back to normal with Biden (again, "defending the interests of the US" and "leveraging their dominant position", which was kind of accepted).

The second Trump administration moved from "overtly bullying" to "behaving like a potential threat". In the second Trump administration, the US has used the tech monopolies against the EU and has become a military threat (not to mention the commercial war with tariffs). For many Europeans, it's not that the US are abusing their dominant position in negotiations anymore: it's that they are not an ally anymore. Not that they are seen as an enemy, but rather an unreliable partner who threatened to become an enemy.

I think that this is a very big shift, and that is why things are actually moving. And I don't think that this will change, because the risk of depending on the US monopolies has now materialised. That cannot be undone.

	▲	ambicapter an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think this is pretty much what Mark Carney said at his speech in Davos.

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vga1 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, AWS even was trying to found a EU sovereign cloud precisely for this reason.

https://aws.eu/

I haven't heard of anyone moving to this, though.

	▲	embedding-shape 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I guess they eventually read their own local (US) laws and figured no one cares about that effort since Amazon is still covered by CLOUD Act, regardless of what ccTLD they happen to use for their landing page. > The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil. Once that was in place, AWS could host their "EU" servers on the moon for all I and others care, still not a solution to avoid the claws of the US.

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patrickmcnamara 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Trump 2 is worse than Trump 1 by far from EU perspective. And it also proved that it wasn't a once-off that Americans will vote in someone who threatens to dismantle NATO, invade Greenland, or start trade wars with allies for no reason.

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vga1 17 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Also Trump 2 proves without a doubt that at least half of the american voters are absolutely insane or incredibly stupid. For 1 there used to be some doubt.

We in Europe are enjoying roughly 15-20% insane/stupid ratings at this point, which is not great but still a bit better.

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rapnie 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Let's face it. Trump 2 is about dismantling democracy. The administration radiates hostility and aggression to anything democratic. In the new national security policy the EU is the adversary of the US. If that isn't a wake-up call.

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embedding-shape an hour ago | parent [-]

> Trump 2 is about dismantling democracy

Seems strange to me that not everyone, including republicans, aren't aware of this, when he's pretty outspoken about not wanting any more elections, and how "if you vote for me this time, it'll be the last time you have to vote".

If a presidential candidate anywhere else was openly talking about wanting to remove elections and democracy in the country (not to mention triggered an insurrection [?!]), I'm fairly sure they'd almost be automatically disqualified. Really strange situation all around.

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tcp_handshaker 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

>Seems strange to me that not everyone, including republicans, aren't aware of >this, when he's pretty outspoken about not wanting any more elections, and how >"if you vote for me this time, it'll be the last time you have to vote".

1) Puerto Ricans were called publicly on a Trump rally in New York, an "island of garbage" and they massively voted for Trump.

- Second generation Latinos, whose many parents, and grand parents and other close family are illegal immigrants, were repeatedly warned of what would happen, and its one of the constitutions, that massively voted for Trump...

- Trump continued to state, as late as 2024,that the Central Park Five were responsible for the 1989 rape of a woman in the Central Park jogger case, despite the five males having been officially exonerated in 2002. - Trump was a leading proponent of the debunked birther conspiracy theory falsely claiming president Barack Obama was not born in the United States - Trump and his company Trump Management were sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against African-American renters.

Donald Trump made big gains with Black voters in 2024.

- Trump is a convicted rapist and felon, and is known 44 million women voted for him...

We are past strange, and we are in the phase of electorate deserves what they voted for.

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frumplestlatz 21 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sources for those quotes would be very helpful for anyone interested in this, because I’ve certainly never heard this before.

We’re two years into his term and democracy does not appear to be dismantled, or even remotely at risk of being dismantled. I also expect the same or similar accusations to be leveled at the next Republican candidate, who if elected, will also not “dismantle democracy”.

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tcp_handshaker 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

>> Sources for those quotes would be very helpful for anyone interested in this, because I’ve certainly never heard this before.

Asking for a quote of what he said so many times, and that is so easily found with a basic web search, says a lot about your comment.

	▲	frumplestlatz a minute ago \| parent [-]
		He hasn’t said what the parent said he did, and in the peer comment supplying a video, the context supplies quite a different meaning than was implied above.

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Alacart 12 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Here is a video of him saying it:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bTm0du4kUH0

	▲	frumplestlatz 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks for the context. He’s speaking to evangelical Christians that do not regularly vote, and in the context of instituting voter ID to secure future elections. ID is required to vote in most (all?) EU states.

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nyeah an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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mrits 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

From the a US perspective, EU hate each other and I see no way any temporary cohesiveness will last. Most EU countries are just as likely to elect a Trump in the next decade

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palata an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> EU hate each other

I see how it may look like this from the outside. But I think it would be like saying that siblings hate each other because you witnessed an argument.

Most people in most EU countries consider the other EU countries as allies, even though they don't agree on everything. Now the fact that 27 countries argue means that they talk to each other. I think it's a lot less polarised than in the US. Or course there are extremes too.

	▲	gmueckl 27 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The EU needs to be more vigilant than ever, though. Russia has been trying to export their nationalistic totalitarianism to the EU for decades and now the US has openly declared a goal of exporting their brand of blind ignorant nationalism to the EU as well. Both influences will boost alt-right parties if successful. The obvious intended outcome for both powers is a EU that is breaking up from the inside. On the positive side, this shows that the EU has gained a level of international influence that is taken very seriously by other major powers. It's not 100% certain that it will survive this current wave of assaults, but if it does, it will be even stronger.
	▲	pjc50 29 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I have no idea how you'd measure it, but I suspect Republican states hate Democrat ones more than most European countries hate each other. Listen to the way they talk about California and New York.

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embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> EU hate each other

What gave you the impression that EU members hate each other? It'd be a weird union if that was the case. Not saying it's not possible, I just haven't seen it myself, although I am a Swede so clearly I do hate the Danes and the Norrbaggar with passion, but it's love-hate, not hate-hate.

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rapnie an hour ago | parent [-]

Likely OP refers to individual countries and quarreling leaders often favoring national interests to what would be best for the union.

	▲	embedding-shape 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> leaders often favoring national interests to what would be best for the union If we're talking about leaders for member states, then they're doing their job right :) They're not meant to figure out what's best for the union, we have separate elections for those people who go to EU and represent the country + care about the union. The national "leaders" of the country are quite expected to put national interests above what's best for the union :)

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solumunus 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Trump wasn't threatening to invade European countries and supporting Putin's position in an ongoing war in term 1. He has been far more outwardly anti-EU in term 2.