The Netherlands has joined Europe’s gradual migration from Windows to Linux on government computers

Something very interesting is happening in the world of FOSS in Europe. Governments understand that putting all their eggs in the non-EU basket leaves them vulnerable to losing accounts and data due to geopolitical tensions. To combat this, some countries are struggling to assert “digital sovereignty,” a concept that gives a country control over its own digital infrastructure.

We saw the Danish government move from Windows to Linux in 2025, followed by France and Switzerland earlier this year. Now it’s time for the Netherlands to announce that it has started migrating government systems from Windows to Linux.

The Dutch government has started the transition to Linux

The current political situation is very alarming

as reported TweakersThe Dutch government offers to test Linux with select computers. It’s part of what the government calls Digital Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid (DAWO), which translates as a digital autonomous government work environment when translated by machine translation.

DAWO’s goal is to completely eliminate the Netherlands’ dependence on non-EU software, including operating systems, operating software, cloud storage services and management tools. However, it’s still early days right now, as Tweakers reports that the government is currently testing its own environment based on NixOS.

Why did the Netherlands make DAWO plans? No prizes for guessing the catalyst. Innovation manager and security expert Victor Gevers explained the situation, and Tweekers summarized Gevers’ statements as follows (machine translated):

“The government’s DAWO project emerged when these concerns surfaced in early 2025. At that time, the US government imposed targeted sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. For example, Microsoft cut off the attorney general from the company’s services such as email. Now there are signs that the Trump administration is preparing sanctions against the ICC broker.

When the first restrictions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into force, the Dutch government realized that access to many important services depended on the political direction of the US government.

As many European governments abandon Windows for Linux, it strengthens the FOSS ecosystem. As the FOSS ecosystem strengthens, it encourages many European governments to switch to Linux. So we may be witnessing the first few rolls of a snowball effect that will see EU governments abandoning Microsoft products entirely.