President Trump’s signals of distancing the US from Europe and seemingly seeking closer ties with Russia likely severe transatlantic relations in the near future.
Trade ties between the US and Europe are likely to deteriorate, this could have a major effect on sectors dominated by US companies, such as software services and cloud infrastructure. Companies like Microsoft has tens of thousdands of employees in Europe. Realistically businesses cannot just stop using their services one day to another. This would greatly hurt everyone.
How do you think Europe should prepare in this?
8 comments
Stop being fussy about one war just because this time it was happening in Europe instead of anywhere else in the world.
Life goes on.
I have already seen some Swedish companies that are moving away from US based infrastructure.
While it previously has been seen as an unnecessary precaution, Trump has made it a more legitimate problem that might be worth some investment.
Right now the US→EU migration is just a grassroots movement. But when these people have solved the basic issues and aren’t running into any unpredictable problems – then larger companies and government agencies might follow.
We should do more on our own. To rely on others is a risk in todays world. Lets work even more together in Europe.
A large percentage of Europeans use an office package (Text processing, Spreadsheet, Mail, Calender, Messaging) with some cloud storage. I.e. this is where we get most bang for the buck.
The google/Microsoft offerings provide a solution where even if you loose you device, then you can get up and running within a short time with a new device with all documents, mails and browser bookmarks available. The Libreoffice, Onlyoffice, ThunderBird etc, can compete with this.
The problem is that the Americans have all our data, and can cut us out if they want, this give them a lot of leverage for blackmail.
The Europeans should focus on:
1. Founding, and developing an open source integrated office solution, that can be hosted at any hosting provider in Europe (Or self hosted).
2. Roll it out to simple users first (Students, Home users, small business)
3. Then untangle the software in large business from Microsoft and implement the European office solution instead.
Critical is to ensure that companies have the funds to build up enough digital infrastructure to make this possible. Therefore, merge European Capital Markets and provide substantial tax incentives for massive investment by companies and people to move money from bank savings to investing in the stock market. This, next to additional incentives for private credit and private equity funds to help finance the needed infrastructure investments. Also, provide even more tax breaks to talented folk coming from elsewhere to compensate for the dramatically lower wages than in the US tech scene
Deregulate the right parts.
It’s way too hard to open, and run, a company. That wouldn’t even touch workers rights.
Make it _a lot_ simpler to open a **European LLC**. Lower capital requirements, simplify tax codes, …
**Keep** the social security standards (no argument if it was a unified, single system across the EU/Eurozone/Schengen area)
Europe won’t do a single thing to defend itself. Just like they accepted 15% tariffs on European goods and 0% on American goods, our spineless politicians will continue to kiss Trump’s ass while he continues to be an aggressor not a partner.
Any change from bottom up will be insufficient. It has to be a legislative action.
In my opinion – start restricting EU financial help. Just like in Poland anti-LGBT zones lost traction as soon as EU decided that those zones will simply get no money, we can do the same with pro-USA companies.
Higher taxes on companies who store or process data outside EU, tax breaks for companies that 100% use european alternatives. Tax on companies operating in EU that use licenses from outside EU.