last month, I informed that a coalition of European companies and community organizations, including IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian and BTactic, were preparing for launch Eurooffice on June 9, 2025. It is a European-based software as a service (SaaS) designed to provide microsoft office and Google Docs, a run for your money.
Euro-Office has been heavily promoted as a sovereign alternative for public authorities, educational systems and some businesses, moving away from over-reliance on US-based cloud productivity services.
However, The Document Foundation behind LibreOffice recently published an open lettersharing his opinion about Euro-Office just one day before its official launch. The foundation claims that Euro-Office has been misrepresented as the first European open source office suite.
The company indicated that LibreOffice and StarOffice were the only genuine open source office suites while seemingly taking a swipe at the Euro-Office. “They are not a free clone of MS Office whose code has not been revealed, nor a product that has changed its name out of pure opportunism to take advantage of the current wave of digital sovereignty.” The Document Foundation added.
In recent days you will have read various articles announcing the arrival of Euro-Office, which is “marketed” as the first open source office suite developed in Europe. We feel obligated (reluctantly, since open source should be based on transparency, not deception) to correct this statement. The first open source office suite developed in Europe was OpenOffice.org in 2001, based on the StarOffice source code, followed by LibreOffice from 2010.
The Document Foundation
He also noted that Euro-Office defaults to Microsoft’s OOXML document format, which he claims is designed to prevent digital sovereignty by keeping content blocked. Starting from this premise, the company states that it is difficult for Euro-Office to claim that it defends open source.
Euro-Office admitted that its service will feature a nearly identical user interface to Microsoft Office, with the key difference being that it falls under European governance and not US oversight. The move may be aimed at distancing users from the Microsoft ecosystem.
This makes it a de facto ally of Microsoft in its content blocking strategy, keeping control firmly in Redmond and away from Europe.
The Document Foundation
The Document Foundation says that the Euro-Office does not reinforce sovereignty and control, but rather builds and strengthens “Microsoft’s strategy against European Digital Sovereignty, or, if you prefer, against the freedom of European users to control and manage their own content.” So far, the launch of Euro-Office has raised more questions than answers.
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