Teresa Ribera, Vice President of the European Commission, today restated the promise by Microsoft’s President Brad Smith that his company will abide by EU regulations. She praised the approach saying that it was better than claiming unfair treatment as a foreign company.
Ribera echoed Smith’s statement, saying the tech boss had told the European Commission about his company’s commitment to ensure full compliance with EU laws and tighten data protection when conducting future business within the bloc.
Smith said he recognized that his company’s business was critically dependent on sustaining the trust of customers, countries, and governments across Europe. He added that he would ensure that Microsoft respected European values, complied with European laws, and actively defended Europe’s cybersecurity. Smith also mentioned that his company’s support for Europe had always been–and always will be–steadfast.
Ribera reiterates Microsoft’s promise to comply with EU laws
EU’s Ribera said Microsoft had committed to abide by European rules, adding that nearly a third of the tech giant’s revenue was generated in Europe. She praised the approach, saying it was much more valuable for companies to acknowledge that it was about complying with the rules if they wanted to operate in the Eurozone market and they were going to respect them, rather than just saying ‘they were being targeted because they were American.’ She noted that the Commission had seen both approaches in its meetings with different players.
Smith said his company would focus on helping customers to manage through whatever comes, if digital services were ‘caught in the crossfire,’ adding that his team was the product of its different experiences, which explained why the team thought about things differently. He further claimed that his company wanted to be ‘a voice of reason’ amid rising geopolitical tensions.
“We understand that European laws apply to our business practices in Europe, just as local laws apply to local practices in the United States and similar laws apply elsewhere in the world…We’re committed not only to building digital infrastructure for Europe, but [also] to respecting the role that laws across Europe play in regulating our products and services.”
–Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President at Microsoft
Smith also pledged last week to protect Microsoft’s European customer data and agreed to challenge any government demand for EU public sector or enterprise customer data where, according to the tech boss, his company had ‘a legal basis for doing so.
Microsoft outlines five new European digital commitments
It means Microsoft is planning to make its European data centers 40% bigger over the next two years, which will let them handle more cloud and AI services for customers across Europe.
This expansion supports things like business innovation, secure government services, and…
— Ask Perplexity (@AskPerplexity) April 30, 2025
Smith’s commitment to data protection is one of five Microsoft pledges to Europe, which include building an AI ecosystem, a European cloud with local firms under local laws, protecting the bloc’s cybersecurity, and strengthening Europe’s economic competitiveness, including for open source.
According to Smith, Microsoft’s expansion of its cloud and AI infrastructure in Europe was aimed at enabling every country in the bloc to fully use these technologies to strengthen their economic competitiveness and digital resilience, regardless of geopolitical and trade volatility. He also clarified that Microsoft planned to increase its European data center capacity by 40% over the next two years.
The Microsoft President disclosed that his company had long been at the forefront in designing and implementing technology solutions to protect customer data–enabling customers to control where their data was stored and processed, how it was encrypted and secured, and when the company could access it.
Microsoft also offered customers strong capabilities across the entire cloud stack, from infrastructure to platform to software as a service, from Azure to Microsoft 365 to Dynamics 365. The tech company recently finished implementing its EU Data Boundary project, which allowed European customers to have their data stored and processed in Europe.
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