📰 Executive Summary – Digital Sovereignty of Switzerland

Veröffentlicht am 08.11.2025 08:51 Blog (EN)

📰 Executive Summary – Digital Sovereignty of Switzerland

Based on: DigiGes Position Paper (November 2025)
Authors: David Sommer, Thomas Mandelz, Alexander Steiner, Alfred Seiler, Ralph Bachmann, Marcel Waldvogel, Ryan Kougionis
Source: digitale-gesellschaft.ch/uploads/2025/11/DigiGes_Positionspapier_Digitale_Souveränität.pdf
Reading time: 7 minutes

🧩 Executive Summary

The Digital Society Switzerland calls for a consistent anchoring of digital sovereignty as a core objective of national digital policy.
Without control over data, software and infrastructure, Switzerland loses its resilience, innovation capacity and competitiveness.
The paper emphasizes: Digital dependency is not a marginal issue, but a security risk for state and economy.
Leaders in politics and business should actively advance open standards, state governance and skills development – not as an ideal, but as an economic necessity.

💬 Critical Guiding Questions

  • How can Switzerland maintain digital independence without decoupling from international competition?
  • Are state requirements for software sovereignty compatible with market economy principles – or does over-regulation threaten?
  • Which actors currently benefit from dependencies – and how can transparency about such power structures be established?

🔮 Scenario Analysis: Future Perspectives

Short-term (1 year):

  • Introduction of sovereign solutions for office automation (email, calendar, collaboration).
  • Development of secure, independent hosting infrastructures.
  • Initial adaptation of public procurement guidelines according to sovereignty criteria.

Medium-term (5 years):

  • Establishment of interoperable cloud environments and open protocols.
  • Increase in cooperation with the EU and like-minded states.
  • Formation of networked professional communities for crisis response and IT resilience.

Long-term (10–20 years):

  • Independent control over entire technology stacks – from hardware to AI.
  • Emergence of a European alliance of sovereign digital infrastructures.
  • Stronger societal self-determination over data, algorithms and digital values.

🧠 Main Summary

a) Core Theme & Context

Digital sovereignty is more than technology – it is a question of political and economic self-determination.
Switzerland should be able to operate critical infrastructures independently, without being dependent on global tech corporations.

b) Most Important Facts & Figures

  • Core demand: Independence in IT infrastructure, software, hardware and data.
  • Three fields of action:
    1. Development & promotion of sovereign software architectures
    2. Binding state governance and procurement guidelines
    3. Training and continuing education of professionals
  • Short-term measures: Introduction of open office software, development of sovereign cloud infrastructure, promotion of interoperable systems.
  • [⚠️ To be verified:] No concrete budget or time specifications for implementation steps provided.

c) Stakeholders & Affected Parties

  • Politics: Federal government, cantons, municipalities – with responsibility for public procurement and digital strategy.
  • Economy: SMEs, IT service providers, cloud providers.
  • Society: Users of digital services whose data flows through international infrastructures.

d) Opportunities & Risks

Opportunities:

  • Strengthening national innovation capacity and data security.
  • New markets for open-source solutions and cloud sovereignty.
  • European cooperation for resilient infrastructures.

Risks:

  • Transitional dependencies and cost increases through self-operation.
  • Lack of skilled professionals can slow implementation.
  • Danger of technocratic over-control without market economy balance.

e) Action Relevance

Leaders should integrate sovereignty criteria into IT procurement and promote open-source strategies.
Long-term planning security and inter-institutional cooperation are crucial to reduce digital dependencies before they become irreversible.

✅ Fact-Checking & Research

The content is based entirely on the official Position Paper of the Digital Society (Version 1.0, Nov 2025).
Current discussions about European cloud sovereignty (Gaia-X, EU-CISPE initiatives) confirm the relevance of the topic.
[⚠️] Numerical data on costs and personnel requirements are missing in the original document.

🔗 Supplementary Sources

  1. Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM): Digital Switzerland Strategy 2025
  2. European Commission: EU Digital Sovereignty Initiatives (2025)
  3. SWICO / Digitalswitzerland: Sovereign Cloud Solutions for SMEs (2024)

Verification status: ✅ Facts checked on November 8, 2025

✍️ Style & Stance

This summary follows a liberal-critical journalistic approach:
It emphasizes personal responsibility over state dependency, transparency over technology myths, market opening over centralization.
Digital sovereignty is understood here as a question of freedom and competition – not as a technocratic control strategy.

📁 Metadata

Filename: digital_sovereignty_management_summary.md
Version: 1.0
Summary Author: press@clarus.news supported by claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929 License: CC-BY 4.0
Created: November 8, 2025

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