Europe spends €264 billion per year on closed IT; the Tax Authority shows that things can be done differently
Two articles in iBestuur this week are connected. The first is about money. According to new research by the Linux Foundation, the European public sector spends €264 billion annually on closed, proprietary IT. In contrast, European investment in open source amounts to €2 billion, spread over seven years.
The second is about a choice. The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration, Customs, and Benefits are halting their migration to Microsoft 365 and opting for office automation on their own servers, supplemented with European open source. State Secretary Eelco Eerenberg of Finance wrote this to the House of Representatives this week.
Together, they show where the bottlenecks are and that things can be done differently. For us at CivAI, this is not an abstract discussion. It is precisely the reason why we built GovGPT.
What the research shows
The report 2026 State of Open Source in Europe by Linux Foundation Research and Linux Foundation Europe is based on a survey of 367 European organisations and on interviews with developers and policymakers. A few figures stand out.
94 percent of organisations consider digital sovereignty strategically important.
Information security and privacy are the main drivers (71 percent), followed by vendor dependency and cost risks (55 percent).
Europe is dependent on providers outside the EU for more than 80 percent of its digital products, services, and infrastructure.
Organisations with a mature open-source policy achieve a benefit-cost ratio of 4.6 on average, compared to 3.6 without a formal policy.
What is striking, according to the researchers, is where things get stuck. Not with the technology, but with procurement. Tenders often bundle closed licences with services, putting providers who offer licence and support separately at a disadvantage. Moreover, purchasers are not always aware of the alternatives.
The same pattern threatens to emerge with AI. In the Agentic AI Foundation, where agreements about AI agents are made, all eight founding members at the highest level are American. The researchers warn that Europe could once again become dependent on choices made elsewhere.
The Tax and Customs Administration chooses by function
This is why the decision by the Tax and Customs Administration is so interesting. The choice for Microsoft 365 from 2025 has been reconsidered. Email and calendar will be on their own infrastructure in 2027, followed later in 2027 and in 2028 by European open-source solutions for storage and collaboration. The hosting of the new VAT system will also be brought back in-house, explicitly because of digital autonomy in the current geopolitical context.
The ICT Assessment Advisory Board gave advice that, in our view, applies to every government organisation: examine the best alternative for each function, instead of sourcing everything from a single supplier.
AI is such a function
That advice fits AI perfectly. An AI assistant does not need to be an extra line on an existing workplace contract. It is a function you can choose separately, with its own requirements for security, transparency, and data location. And because most organisations are still at the beginning of this journey, there is no legacy making a switch expensive.
With GovGPT we offer exactly that. A secure AI environment for government that by default runs on European infrastructure from our partner Scaleway, in data centres in France and the Netherlands. Data remains within the European Union and is not subject to the American Cloud Act. Conversations and documents are never used to train models.
The organisation itself decides which AI models are available, including open models, and everything is traceable via audit logging. A DPIA and a data processing agreement are ready, and the platform is designed according to the Baseline Information Security Government standard. The licence costs €35 per user per month, excluding VAT, and can be cancelled monthly. No multi-year contract, no bundle with products you do not use.
Municipality of Bodegraven-Reeuwijk led the way
The fact that this works in practice is demonstrated by the municipality of Bodegraven-Reeuwijk. Since June, employees there have been working with GovGPT. The municipality is rolling out the platform team by team. Each team builds its own AI agents for recurring tasks and simultaneously works on digital skills. In this way, usage grows step by step, based on what it delivers in practice.
What you can do now as a government organisation
1. Look at each function. Follow the advice of the ICT Assessment Advisory Board and put AI on the agenda as a separate function, independent of the workplace contract.
2. Make alternatives visible. The research shows that lack of awareness among purchasers is a barrier. A brief exploration of European AI providers already helps.
3. Start small and measure. One team, a free pilot of three to six months with a maximum of twenty users, and keep track of the results.
The Tax and Customs Administration shows that a large organisation can revise a previously made decision. With AI, that is not even necessary; you can start with a clean slate today. Especially in an age of AI, this is an opportunity not to miss. Curious how GovGPT fits your organisation? Visit govgpt.nl or email us at info@civai.eu. We are happy to think along with you.
Sources. iBestuur, 8 October 2026, about the report 2026 State of Open Source in Europe by the Linux Foundation, and iBestuur, 6 October 2026, about the letter to parliament from State Secretary Eerenberg. Also read our earlier article about the mail servers of EU institutions.
Illustrative image, created with AI