Denmark to replace Microsoft Office with open source alternatives

German state of Schleswig-Holstein also turns its back on Microsoft as Europeans fear being ‘blackmailed’ by Big Tech

Denmark's Agency for Digital Government has announced plans to phase out Microsoft software across its offices in favour of open source alternatives, joining a growing European movement challenging the dominance of American tech giants.

Danish minister for digitalisation Caroline Stage Olsen confirmed in an interview with Politiken that over half of the agency's staff will switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice next month, with a complete transition to open-source tools expected by the end of the year.

"If everything goes as expected, all employees will be on an open-source solution during the autumn," Politiken reported, quoting Stage.

LibreOffice, developed by Berlin-based non-profit The Document Foundation, offers a full suite of office tools including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and database management.

While the transition might considered a bold step, Stage noted that the agency retains the option of reverting to Microsoft products if technical challenges prove insurmountable.

The policy mirrors recent decisions by Denmark's two largest municipalities, Copenhagen and Aarhus, which have already announced their intention to replace Microsoft systems due to financial concerns, perceived monopolistic behaviour, and political tensions with the US government. Advocates of the shift call it a move toward "digital sovereignty."

German state turns its back on Microsoft

Denmark's decision aligns with a broader wave of digital realignment sweeping across Europe. Last week, the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein reaffirmed its commitment to eliminating Microsoft software across its government offices.

The plan, which began last year, involves replacing Microsoft Word and Excel with LibreOffice, Outlook with Open-Xchange, and eventually migrating to the Linux operating system.

In less than three months, almost no civil servant, police officer or judge in Schleswig-Holstein will be using any of Microsoft's ubiquitous programmes at work.

"We're done with Teams!" the state's digitalisation minister Dirk Schroedter told AFP.

The transition currently affects 30,000 of Schleswig-Holstein's 60,000 public servants, with 30,000 teachers set to follow. The state also plans to move its data storage onto a cloud system owned and operated within Germany, further distancing itself from US tech providers.

Political and economic motivations

Underlying this pan-European pivot is growing concern over the control that US-based "hyperscaler" companies—such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google—wield over digital infrastructure, software ecosystems and data sovereignty.

At the recent Nextcloud Summit in Munich, German MEP Alexandra Geese, a leading figure in shaping the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), warned that Europe risks being "blackmailed" by both American and Chinese tech giants.

"This is why it's so important that we build our own technological and digital infrastructure, that we support our own companies, that we keep the talent we have here in Europe," she said.

The summit brought together policymakers, technologists and economists, including antitrust expert Cristina Caffara, who warned about the growing lobbying efforts by US firms in Brussels.

Together with Geese, Caffara co-founded the Eurostack policy initiative to bolster European digital competitiveness and sovereignty.

While US companies claim their European datacentres comply with EU laws, critics point to the US Cloud Act, which obligates American companies to comply with US government data requests—even when the data is stored abroad.

"[The hyperscalers] say they have hosting centres in Europe, so it's all fine. But the Cloud Act states that if you're a US organisation, you follow the US law, which means you need to give US agencies access to this data," said Frank Karlitschek, CEO of Nextcloud.

Experts also highlight economic factors in the open-source shift. Schleswig-Holstein, for example, hopes its move away from Microsoft will ultimately save tens of millions of euros. Denmark anticipates similar financial benefits, especially as it avoids updating large numbers of Windows 10 systems in the face of Microsoft's scheduled end of support.

Despite the scale and ambition of these reforms, European leaders acknowledge they are arriving late to the effort to reclaim control over digital infrastructure.

"We should have started a lot earlier," Geese admitted. "I often get the question, 'Is it too late?' Well, it’s always too late. But let's start now."