European governments are pushing back against Big Tech's grip on public infrastructure. Denmark announced earlier this year that its Ministry of Digital Affairs was switching from Microsoft to LibreOffice. In more recent news, Switzerland's data protection authorities declared international cloud services unsuitable for handling personal data.
One German state has been leading this charge for quite some time. Schleswig-Holstein started its open source journey early, becoming something of a vanguard in Europe's move away from proprietary software.
Now, Dirk Schrödter, the Minister for Digital Transformation of the state, has shared some remarkable numbers (in Deutsch) that prove the financial case for implementing open source for government use cases.
15 Million Euros in Annual Savings!?
According to Schrödter's ministry, Schleswig-Holstein will save over €15 million in license costs in 2026. This is money the state previously paid Microsoft for Office 365 and related services.
The savings come from nearly completing the migration to LibreOffice. Outside the tax administration, almost 80% of workplaces in the state government are said to have made the switch.
The remaining 20% of workplaces still depend on Microsoft programs. Technical dependencies in certain specialized applications keep these systems tied to Word or Excel for now. But converting these remaining computers is the end goal.
There is also a one-time €9 million investment set in motion for 2026, which would be used to complete the migration and further develop the open source solutions for the ministry.
My Two Cents
These numbers deserve attention from governments worldwide. Schleswig-Holstein proves that breaking free from proprietary software isn't just ideologically appealing but financially smart.
The €15 million annual savings will compound year after year. That is public money staying in the economy instead of flowing to a user data-hungry tech giant based overseas.
More importantly, this is about data sovereignty. Why should governments hand sensitive government data to companies subject to foreign surveillance laws? Open source alternatives keep data in-house, under local control, without forced cloud uploads.
