European search engine for the whole EU

The Franco-German consortium European Search Perspective (EUSP) has sent open letters to the heads of government of all 27 EU member states. It proposes the creation of national search indexes as a public digital infrastructure. The initiative comes 100 days after the Digital Sovereignty Summit in Berlin, where European heads of state and government pledged to reduce critical digital dependencies.

The organization argues that search infrastructure should be treated as strategic public infrastructure, comparable in importance to energy networks or telecommunications networks:

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“Search results determine visibility. Visibility determines market access. Market access determines winners and losers. In digital markets, ranking is not a neutral formality – it is an allocation of opportunities,” writes EUSP. The company estimates the dependence at around €18 trillion of European economic output.

However, search is almost entirely controlled by companies outside the EU. According to the EUSP, 99,5% of all European search queries are answered by two American companies (Google and Bing at 96%) and one Russian provider (Yandex, 3,5%).

Dangerous Addiction

According to the EUSP, a failure or blockage of the dominant search index infrastructure could render governments unable to act and lead economies to a standstill. Such measures are not just a theoretical scenario. US policy has demonstrated this on many occasions in recent years, for example through trade tariffs or by cutting off a judge at the International Criminal Court from digital life.

The European Search Perspective proposes that EU member states protect themselves from such measures with a sovereign search infrastructure. It should consist of a national search index hosted under European jurisdiction, a national ranking algorithm, and an infrastructure supporting both public search services and fundamental web AI.

EUSP is a consortium of European search services Qwant (France) and Ecosia (Germany) and has been operating the European search index called Staan (Search Trusted API Access Network) since August 2025, which is also available to third parties via API. Currently, Staan is limited to French content.

The EUSP proposal to EU heads of government :

The company could expand its initiative to other EU member states. Governments could directly fund the index or alternatively use Ecosia and Qwant as the default search engine in public administration.

Unlike many digital infrastructure proposals, EUSP does not ask governments for money.

Ecosia and Qwant say the infrastructure will be funded through advertising revenue if governments across Europe switch to European search engines as default search providers.

Oels claimed that this would generate enough traffic for the system to be financially viable.

"We are ready to offer it for free if public administrations designate us as the default search engine."

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