With this guiding principle in mind, the Federal Employment Agency (BA) held a symposium entitled "LET'S GET SOVEREIGN CLOUD – FROM SLOGAN TO IMPLEMENTATION" to discuss with experts how cloud solutions can be used strategically, securely, and in a user-oriented manner.
In 2024, the BA, together with the two other social insurance agencies –the German Pension Insurance and the German Social Accident Insurance – had established secure access to modern cloud services and awarded the contract to a cloud broker.
"To make the cloud usable for the BA in the long term, we opted for a multi-cloud approach. An important criterion here is that we do not make ourselves dependent on one cloud provider, because as a social services agency, we must always remain capable of acting and making decisions. We have therefore made a conscious decision to also consider reputable cloud providers that process data within the European Economic Area," said Andrea Nahles, Chairwoman of the BA, at the BA's third symposium in Berlin on December 2, 2025.
After launching its multi-cloud strategy last year, the BA looked at the specific challenges of implementing cloud solutions this year.
Nahles emphasized that providers also have a responsibility: "Nevertheless, the business community has a duty to involve the public sector from the outset so that our connectivity remains guaranteed and we don't have to keep going back to square one with European cloud offerings."
With the multi-cloud infrastructure introduced in 2024, the BA has already secured flexible access to cloud services from US hyperscalers and German and European providers. This step marks the transition from pure usage to targeted control with a focus on data and information security.
Now it's time to move on to the next stage: How will the sovereign cloud be implemented in practice, and what framework conditions do politicians and businesses need to create? The opening keynote was given by Andrea Nahles and Stefan Latuski, CIO of the BA. In the panel discussion, high-ranking representatives such as Alexandra Geese (MEP), Christian Müller (Schwarz Digits), and Thomas Caspers (BSI) discussed how to strike a balance between the requirements of the public sector and the offerings of the private sector.
Stefan Latuski, CIO of the BA, calls for a determined "culture of action": "Only if the relevant services offered by public administration are actually used in the end can providers remain competitive in the long term, both technologically and economically, and establish themselves on the market. In order to achieve digital sovereignty as we envision it, we must commit ourselves at this level and boldly move forward with implementation."
The BA is thus emphasizing its role as a player that is actively shaping the path to the cloud not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of economic and regulatory policy, in order to achieve its goal of becoming Europe's most advanced digital public service provider.
Wichtig:Background:
The Federal Employment Agency (BA) defines digital sovereignty in the context of its digitalization as the goal of being able to control and shape one's own life in a self-determined, secure, and independent manner, while ensuring legal, economic, and technological capacity to act.
When it comes to digital sovereignty, black-and-white thinking should not be the focus; rather, a differentiated approach is needed in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.
In concrete terms, this means maintaining control over data and systems and reducing critical dependencies on individual providers or technologies.