The Dutch government has released its new Vision on Digital Autonomy and Sovereignty. The document claims to strengthen national decision making, reduce structural dependencies and improve control over critical digital infrastructure. On paper it sounds like a decisive shift. In practice it raises the same questions that have been lingering in every Dutch sovereignty debate over the past decade.
If you follow this blog, you will recognize several recurring themes. The illusion of vendor independence, the political discomfort around American hyperscalers, and the persistent mismatch between policy ambition and operational reality. See for example The Exit That Never Was or my earlier analysis of the government’s cloud posture in A Paper Tiger in The Hague. The new vision does little to change those fundamentals.
The return of a familiar fear#
The document starts from a blunt but accurate premise. The Netherlands is deeply dependent on a small cluster of foreign suppliers, primarily American hyperscalers. A political shock in Washington or a global outage caused by a botched update could cripple Dutch government systems from healthcare to taxation. This exact scenario was covered in my piece on the Solvinity and Kyndryl case and the fantasy of a sovereignty kill switch
The Sovereignty Kill Switch That Never Existed.
The new vision states that the government must always be able to choose its technology, switch providers when necessary and retain operational control. This is a reasonable requirement. The problem is that it conflicts directly with how the Dutch state actually buys and operates IT. Consolidated outsourcing, monolithic contracts and decades of technical debt leave little room for meaningful autonomy.
Autonomy versus sovereignty#
The vision draws a distinction between digital autonomy and digital sovereignty. Autonomy is described as the ability to make independent decisions about technology. Sovereignty is framed as full legal and administrative control over digital infrastructure and data.
The Netherlands does not aim for full sovereignty and admits it is not realistic. Instead it aims for “grip” on infrastructure used by the state and for sensitive data to remain under Dutch or European jurisdiction. This is a pragmatic view but not a strategic one. It avoids the central question: if critical infrastructure depends on American cloud platforms, what does jurisdictional control actually mean in a geopolitical crisis
This tension is the same one I discussed in The VOC Mentality and Digital Sovereignty.
The cloud policy tightening that still is not tightening#
One of the main action points is a stricter cloud policy for the entire central government. Data must be stored securely and fall under European law. The government also wants to consolidate IT procurement so it can negotiate better terms.
This is the same procurement logic that created multi-billion euro outsourcing dependencies in the first place. Without structural redesign of architecture, exit planning, contracting and internal capability, centralisation usually increases dependency rather than reduces it.
The government also reiterates support for open standards, open source and the modernisation of legacy systems. These are good goals and long overdue. But without measurable commitments they remain aspirations.
Europe as the fallback strategy#
The Netherlands wants deeper European cooperation and alternative digital infrastructure developed within the EU. The new European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC) on Digital Commons is highlighted as a cornerstone. It focuses on AI, cloud, cybersecurity, office tooling and social networking.
This is one of the few credible components of the strategy. Europe can build alternatives but only if member states are willing to fund and use them. As long as national governments keep buying convenience from US suppliers, European scalability will remain limited.
A vision that remains a vision#
The new policy builds on the Digital Strategy and the Agenda for Digital Open Strategic Autonomy. It was developed across multiple government layers. Yet despite the grand framing, the central challenge remains unchanged. Autonomy cannot be acquired through policy papers. It requires the political will to reduce dependency and the technical capability to operate what you depend on.
Until the Netherlands invests seriously in internal expertise, diversified infrastructure and sovereign architectural design, visions like this one will remain precisely that: visions.