You are kindly invited to vote on the approval of DIGITAL SME’s Policy Paper on the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA). Click here to download the draft.

Background: The Cloud and AI Development Act is one of the flagship initiatives within the Commission’s upcoming Tech Sovereignty Package – now expected for 27 May – aiming to triple the EU’s computing capacity by 2030 by removing barriers to data centre development on the continent. The proposal is expected to address Europe’s structural cloud dependency, where EU providers currently hold less than 13% of the cloud market, and set the conditions for a sovereign, competitive European cloud ecosystem.

DIGITAL SME’s draft policy paper presents a comprehensive set of recommendations for the CADA. It calls for a clear, enforceable legal definition of “sovereign cloud” based on European legal and operational control, the strategic use of public procurement as an industrial policy tool with a binding target of 50% sovereign cloud adoption by 2030, and the federation of European cloud providers through interoperability standards. The paper also addresses the need for improved financing and permitting conditions for data centres, with a particular focus on enabling SMEs and mid-tier European providers to scale and compete.