# op-ed The Case for a Temporary Moratorium on Large Data Centers in Europe July 2026
The Case for a Temporary Moratorium on Large Data Centers in Europe, by Michelle Thorne, Aurora Gomez Delgado, Fieke Jansen, and Rosi Leonard.
The European Commission says expanding AI infrastructure is essential to Europe’s technological sovereignty. Yet, it has not shown why Europe needs to triple data center capacity, nor how existing infrastructure is being used, nor how rapid expansion can be reconciled with Europe’s climate, energy and democratic commitments.
There is no solid evidence for the need to triple data center capacity, with evidence to suggest that many data centers in Europe are underutilized and that new data center development will be dominated by US tech and co-location firms who prioritize serving the largest multinational corporate cloud providers, most of which are US-based.
Nevertheless, the European Commission is aggressively dismantling environmental protections and democratic oversight to achieve this target. Read more.
# op-ed Why the EU Commission’s plan for an AI data-centres boom is short-sighted March 2026
Across Europe, conflicts over data centres’ demand for water, energy, and land are now playing out.
In Spain, the Your Cloud Dries Up My River movement exposes water-hungry data centres.
In Ireland, households were put on water rations to ensure data centres could keep on cooling their servers.
In the Netherlands, a new school building struggled to be connected to the electricity grid due to capacity pre-committed to a data centre.
These local conflicts will only worsen now that the European Commission plans to triple data centre capacity in Europe over the next five to seven years.
Why the EU Commission’s plan for an AI data-centres boom is short-sighted by Fieke Jansen, Kristina Irion and Alex Lutz
