European sovereignty between aspiration and dependence

The debate surrounding Palantir’s expanding footprint in Europe is not simply a dispute over a single software provider. It goes to the heart of Europe’s struggle for digital sovereignty: whether states should develop and control their own security-critical digital infrastructures or rely on external actors whose strategic interests may not be aligned. The controversy is less about Palantir itself than about the structural vulnerability it reveals.

Strengths: technological edge, operational efficiency, strategic advantages

Few would dispute Palantir’s technological leadership. Two decades of continuous development—most notably in platforms like Gotham—have produced capabilities that analysts estimate are years ahead of competing solutions. In a geopolitical climate marked by hybrid threats, cyberattacks, and often-fragmented public-sector digitisation, it is unsurprising that European authorities turn to a company offering reliable, ready-to-deploy tools.

Ease of use is a key factor. Palantir enables non-technical users in police forces, administrations, and security agencies to integrate data, analyse situations, and coordinate operations with minimal onboarding effort. Positive experiences in several German federal states have reinforced the perception that Palantir can quickly close operational gaps that European vendors have not yet addressed at scale.

In a domain where data processing, pattern analysis, and real-time decision support have become security-relevant, governments are reluctant to experiment. Palantir delivers—and it delivers fast.

Risks: dependency, opacity, and shifts in control

Yet Palantir’s greatest strengths are also the source of the most serious concerns. Few technology companies maintain comparably deep ties to U.S. defence and intelligence agencies, and few operate with such limited transparency. Widespread adoption in Europe risks locking critical state functions into proprietary ecosystems that will be difficult to unwind.

Once operational workflows are built on deeply integrated platforms, autonomy is not only technically compromised—it is strategically ceded.

Civil-society groups are right to warn of structural loss of control. The more sensitive the data—policing, infrastructure monitoring, risk models—the greater the danger that external actors gain not only access but influence over how security problems are defined and addressed. Dependence arises not merely from data access, but from epistemic power: those who build the models shape what becomes visible, actionable, or politically relevant.

Cultural concerns add another layer. Reports of a hierarchical, mission-driven, sometimes confrontational corporate ethos raise questions about value alignment with European institutions. In security-critical infrastructures, technical excellence alone does not suffice; institutional philosophy matters.

The deeper issue: Europe lacks alternatives

The core problem is not Palantir’s existence, but Europe’s absence. That a single U.S. company dominates this market reveals long-standing structural failures: insufficient strategic investment, fragmented procurement, and lack of interoperable public data infrastructures.

As long as Europe does not develop sovereign analytical platforms of its own, debates about sovereignty will remain reactive—attempts to manage dependencies rather than prevent them.

Towards a strategic shift: between pragmatism and autonomy

A sober debate is required. European governments need powerful data platforms, and in the short term Palantir may well be the most functional option. But reliance on a single non-European provider cannot become a default strategy—even if convenient—without eroding sovereignty through quiet, incremental dependency.

What is at stake is not simply data protection or contract law, but the distribution of political power:
whoever controls digital infrastructure shapes the boundaries of state agency.

If Europe intends to remain sovereign, it must not only regulate external providers but cultivate internal capabilities—technological, organisational, and strategic. Only then will the central question shift from whether Palantir threatens European sovereignty to whether Europe is capable of exercising it.