The European Parliament will replace Google with Qwant as its default search engine on June 4, 2026, making it one of the most visible institutional acts in the bloc’s escalating effort to reduce dependence on U.S. technology.
Reuters reports that the change applies to Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox browsers used across the Parliament. It will be applied automatically, though users retain the option to switch to another search engine. The Parliament has 720 lawmakers, along with thousands of assistants and administrative staff.
What the Switch Means: A Parliament spokesperson described the move as “part of a larger framework of actions aimed at reducing EP reliance on non-EU digital tools and promoting European-based, privacy-focused services.”
Qwant, based in France, presents itself as a privacy-focused search engine that neither tracks users nor sells their data to advertisers. This change is primarily symbolic, as the EU’s leading legislative body is openly moving away from the world’s dominant search engine.
Timed With a Broader EU Tech Package: On the same day as the Parliament’s announcement, the European Commission introduced measures on chips, cloud computing, and AI as part of its “Buy and Use European” initiative. On June 3, 2026, the Commission adopted what it described as an ambitious package to strengthen the EU’s digital autonomy. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen identified technological sovereignty as essential to EU competitiveness and strategic resilience.
The EU relies on non-EU countries for over 80% of essential digital products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property. This figure is central to ongoing discussions in Brussels about achieving digital independence.
What Individual EU Countries Have Done: The Parliament’s decision follows the concrete actions by member states to reduce reliance on U.S. platforms and infrastructure.
France: The government announced that by 2027, 2.5 million civil servants will stop using U.S. video conferencing tools, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and GoToMeeting, and will switch to Visio, a domestic service. Civil service minister David Amiel said the goal is to prevent “scientific exchanges, sensitive data, and strategic innovations” from being exposed to non-European actors.
Germany: In early 2026, the German Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation mandated the use of open formats, such as the Open Document Format (ODF), for official documents, replacing Microsoft Word as the government standard. By the end of 2025, Schleswig-Holstein had migrated 80% of its state government workplaces, around 30,000 in total, to Linux, resulting in savings of over €15 million in license fees. In May, the federal domestic intelligence agency selected ArgonOS, a European alternative to Palantir, for processing unstructured data.
Denmark: In 2025, the Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs announced that all employees…
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