Airbus, Deutsche Telekom fight for EU cloud sovereignty rules

Companies including Airbus, Deutsche Telekom AG and Orange have written to European Union officials to support a plan that would make it harder for US cloud providers to earn the highest cybersecurity certification. Nearly 20 companies said customers increasingly want their data stored in Europe, and want security standards to be harmonized across the bloc, according to a letter that was seen by Bloomberg. Getting the voluntary certification can be useful for landing contracts with large local customers and governments. ENISA, the EU’s cybersecurity regulator, has been working on plans for stricter rules that would prevent foreign governments from interfering with EU data. In practice, this would mean that some of the largest providers, including Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc., would have to ensure the US government can’t access European cloud data in order to qualify for the label. The companies also argued against exempting NATO members or countries with so-called data adequacy agreements from the requirements and said it’s “aimed at improving the functioning of the EU internal market” and goes beyond NATO’s remit. <br/>