EU Parliament to Ditch Google for European Alternative Qwant

European Parliament to ditch Google for European alternative | Euractiv

Ga naar de hoofdinhoud

Economy

Politics

Agrifood

Health

Tech

Energy, Environment & Transport

Defence

English

Français

Deutsch

Español

You're logged out.

Lights off

[Photo by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images]

The European Parliament will this week replace Google with France’s Qwant – a European alternative search engine – as the default on its computers, according to an email seen by Euractiv.

Microsoft is usually core to discussions of European institutions’ (lack of) tech sovereignty, with almost all EU bodies using the US giant’s Office workplace suite. But Google is also extremely entrenched in the global search engine market with a European market share of about 90%.

Parliament will attempt to move the needle away from the US giant starting on Thursday – a day after the European Commission is due to present a package of legal proposals aimed at boosting the bloc’s tech sovereignty and reducing reliance on US tech giants.

“When performing a search from the address bar at the top of the browser in Firefox and Edge browsers, the search results will be provided by Qwant, a privacy-focused European search engine designed to avoid tracking users or collecting personal data,” ran the email sent to lawmakers on Tuesday.

The change is intended to align with the Parliament’s existing commitment to “digital sovereignty and the protection of users’ personal data”, it added.

MEPs will still be able to change the default search engine to other software, including Google’s search engine, per the email. But the default option will be software provided by a European competitor.

Qwant is an interesting choice since, while the French company has historically relied upon Microsoft’s Bing index to power search results, in recent years it’s been jointly developing its own search index, called Staan – in partnership with Ecosia, another European search tool.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Parliament’s switch to Qwant.

Back in November, MEPs urged Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola to switch a whole list of IT services to European providers.

“With enough political will, we will have freed this institution from the danger of foreign tech dependency by the end of the mandate,” they wrote at the time.

The lawmakers specifically complained about being forced to use Bing, Google, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo on the “imposed” Microsoft-owned Edge browser – suggesting Ecosia, Startpage and Qwant as European alternatives.

While the switch to Qwant appears to mark a partial win for sovereignty minded legislators, a lot of other tech dependencies that MEPs previously highlighted – including foreign-built smartphones, email clients and of course Microsoft’s Office suite – remain entrenched in the EU’s digital administration.

(nl)

France becomes first EU country to reimburse Wegovy and Mounjaro for obesity

28.05.2026

Pro

Health

Ad Bruxellam: Making Latin the EU’s next language

01.06.2026

Politics

EXCLUSIVE: EU may exclude military-age Ukrainian men from protection scheme

01.06.2026

Politics

European Parliament to ditch Google for European alternative

02.06.2026

Pro

Tech

Pay-to-play in Brussels: How media events became the new lobbying frontier

04:00

Long Read

Politics

A concise daily dose of news and analysis from the European institutions and national capitals. The only read you need to stay on top of EU politics.

Enter your email

Shouting match in Hungarian Parliament over ‘heartbeat’ abortion decree