Elastx CEO Joakim Öhman calls for clearer political leadership in a new debate article in Dagens Industri warning that Sweden's security, competitiveness, and strategic autonomy are at risk if the situation isn't taken more seriously.
In a new debate article in Dagens Industri, Elastx CEO Joakim Öhman calls for clearer and more deliberate political leadership on digital sovereignty in line with the work already underway in several other European countries and within the EU. The article follows Minister for Public Administration Erik Slottner's statement on Swedish public radio (Ekot) that the government has not yet decided to phase out American IT services, something Öhman says underscores the need for clearer direction.
While Sweden stands still, other European countries are acting. Denmark has begun phasing out American systems at the ministry level, and the German state of Schleswig-Holstein has already replaced American office software for 44,000 employees with European alternatives. Öhman argues that what's at stake is bigger than which systems public administration uses - it's about control over critical information and Sweden's long-term room for action.
Öhman points to several concrete risks in the current situation:
- American companies currently control roughly 85 percent of the European cloud market, with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google as the dominant players
- Swedish public authorities, municipalities, and companies largely lack clear exit strategies
- According to the Swedish Security Index 2026, 70 percent of decision-makers in critical infrastructure assess the threat level as serious, and more than half say they lack sufficient resources to address it
- Europe spends roughly SEK 3,000 billion annually on American IT services - value that ends up being created elsewhere
Öhman also sees an opportunity for the government's recently presented national cloud policy to go further — with clearer targets for reducing dependency, requirements for exit strategies, and investment in open standards and European alternatives, in line with what several other EU countries have already introduced.
"Continuing as we are today is not a neutral choice - it's an active decision to increase vulnerability." says Joakim Öhman, CEO Elastx
The conclusion is clear: digital sovereignty is entirely achievable, other countries and the EU are showing the way. Öhman is clear that continued inaction is not a neutral choice, but in practice an active decision to increase Sweden's vulnerability. What he's calling for is that Sweden take the same deliberate, decisive steps already underway across Europe before its freedom to act narrows further.
Read the full debate article on Dagens Industri (Swedish only).
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