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.

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.

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.

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.

I saw a lot of privacy focused reactions when they cut off Trump from social media before his term ended, while still in office. National sovereignty should always be a consideration, especially when it comes to anything related to essential infrastructure. Not every country is able to insource everything, or even a portion of everything... but every country should make an effort to ensure than there is at least some domestic production for everything that is reasonable related to essential infrastructure.

The US, China, Russia, EU (as a whole) and maybe Brazil are the countries in the best position to be able to do that more than most others just by their size and positions. And even that has limitations.

For example, IMO, the US should be manufacturing at least half of it's prescription medications domestically... it should also be producing a significant portion of it's communications devices domestically as well. We're too dependent on Taiwan and South Korea for technology currently.

I would encourage every nation to consider and take steps towards ensuring their own infrastructure... this does not mean isolation, just security footing.

Thats overly flattering, there have always been good arguments for having your data in the same country (if not the same building) A worse case hypothetical trump is really much worse than the real one.

On the other hand it is also lame to shift the blame on the US. A bit like Jim stole your car after you left the doors open, the key in the ignition and the engine running. Jim is a bad man.

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.