The Sovereignty Paradox: LibreOffice Slams ‘European’ Euro-Office for Enabling Microsoft Lock-in
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A Clash of ‘Sovereign’ Visions
The fight for European digital independence has found a new, contentious flashpoint. The Document Foundation, the stewardship body behind LibreOffice, has launched a scathing critique of the newly debuted Euro-Office, claiming the suite is less of a liberation tool and more of a “de facto ally” to Microsoft’s long-standing content lock-in strategies.
The tension peaked this week when Italo Vignoli, a founding member of The Document Foundation, issued an open letter aimed at correcting the narrative surrounding the launch of Euro-Office 1.0. While Euro-Office is being marketed as a sovereign, open-source alternative developed within Europe to reduce reliance on American Big Tech, Vignoli argues that the project’s technical foundations tell a different story.
The Format War: ODF vs. OOXML
At the heart of the dispute is not just who wrote the code, but how the software handles data. For decades, the open-source community has championed the Open Document Format (ODF), an ISO-standardized system designed to ensure that users—not software vendors—own and control their documents. LibreOffice has been the primary standard-bearer for this movement.
Euro-Office, however, takes a different pragmatic approach: it defaults to Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML). While OOXML is widely used, it is developed and controlled by Microsoft in Redmond. By making this the default, Vignoli argues that Euro-Office essentially validates Microsoft’s dominance over the productivity ecosystem.
“Euro-Office defaults to the fully proprietary OOXML document format, developed and controlled solely by Microsoft,” Vignoli wrote, asserting that this choice strengthens the very lock-in mechanisms that the European Union has spent years trying to dismantle through regulatory frameworks and digital sovereignty initiatives.
Tracing the Lineage
The conflict also touches on the historical identity of open-source office software in Europe. Euro-Office’s marketing leans heavily on being a “first” or a primary European answer to the productivity monopoly. Vignoli was quick to point out that this ignores a two-decade legacy, citing the 2001 release of OpenOffice.org (derived from Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice) and the subsequent 2010 birth of LibreOffice.
Beyond the historical debate, the origins of Euro-Office itself are complicated. The suite is a fork of the OnlyOffice productivity platform, a project launched by a partnership between German cloud provider Nextcloud and hosting giant Ionos. This move has already stirred controversy, as the original developers of OnlyOffice have previously voiced objections to the fork and the specific branding used by the Euro-Office team.
The Pragmatism Defense
From the perspective of Euro-Office’s creators, the choice of OOXML is likely a matter of survival and adoption. Forcing a government agency or a corporate entity to switch entirely to ODF overnight often creates significant friction, leading users to revert to Microsoft 365. By supporting OOXML as a default, Euro-Office positions itself as a “bridge” rather than a barrier.
In a statement provided to The Register, a spokesperson for Euro-Office acknowledged that proprietary formats are a hindrance to true sovereignty but argued that users must first be “freed” from the tools they currently use before they can transition to open standards. The project claims it will prioritize improving ODF support in future iterations, eventually moving toward a world where ODF is the primary standard.
Whether this “bridge” strategy is a legitimate path toward independence or a surrender to the status quo remains the central point of contention. For The Document Foundation, a sovereign tool that relies on a competitor’s format is a contradiction in terms; for Euro-Office, it is the only way to actually get users to switch.
