26 business associations from around Europe issued a warning on Monday over a planned cybersecurity certification programme (EUCS) for cloud services: it should not discriminate against Amazon, Microsoft, or Alphabet’s Google.

The plan, which has undergone several revisions since ENISA released a draft in 2020, will be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday with representatives from the European Commission, EU cybersecurity agency ENISA, and member states.

The EUCS seeks to assist businesses and governments in selecting a reliable and secure cloud computing provider. The worldwide cloud computing market is predicted to increase by double digits and earn billions of euros in revenue annually.

In order to be eligible for the highest level of the EU cybersecurity label, U.S. tech giants had to establish a joint venture or work with an EU-based business to store and process customer data within the bloc. These so-called sovereignty requirements were removed from a previous proposal in March.

“We believe that an inclusive and non-discriminatory EUCS that supports the free movement of cloud services in Europe will help our members prosper at home and abroad, contribute to Europe’s digital ambitions, and strengthen its resilience and security,” the organisations stated in a joint letter to EU nations.

“The removal of both ownership controls and Protection against Unlawful Access (PUA) / Immunity to Non-EU Law (INL) requirements ensures that cloud security improvements align with industry best practices and non-discriminatory principles,” they said.

In order to prosper in a global market that is becoming more and more competitive, the organisations stated that it is imperative that their members have access to a wide variety of robust cloud technologies that are suited to their particular demands.

The European Payment Institutions Federation and the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Norway, Romania, and Spain are among the signatories of the letter.

The Czech Confederation of Industry, the Danish Dansk Industry, the German Bundesverband deutscher Banken, the Irish business lobby organisation IBEC, the Digital Poland Association, the Netherlands’ NL Digital, and the Spanish Start-up Association are among the other signatories to the letter.

EU cloud providers, including Airbus, Orange, and Deutsche Telekom, have advocated for sovereignty restrictions in the EUCS due to concerns that non-EU governments might have illegal access to European citizens’ data based on their legal frameworks.

(Adapted from MarketScreener.com)