The Document Foundation didn’t hold back. Just hours before Euro-Office’s official debut on June 9, 2026, a founding member fired off an open letter. Italo Vignoli accused the new European-backed productivity tool of undermining the very digital independence it claims to deliver.
Euro-Office emerged from a coalition of companies including Nextcloud, IONOS, Proton and several others. They forked OnlyOffice code. Their goal sounded straightforward. Create a web-based office suite hosted in Europe. Market it as a sovereign alternative to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Yet that pitch quickly ran into sharp resistance.
“Euro-Office defaults to the fully proprietary OOXML document format, developed and controlled solely by Microsoft,” Vignoli wrote in the Document Foundation blog post. “This makes it a de facto ally of Microsoft in its content lock-in strategy, with control remaining firmly in Redmond and far from Europe.”
The criticism lands at a sensitive time. European governments and institutions hunt for ways to reduce reliance on American technology giants. Concerns over data privacy, sudden price hikes and potential government access through U.S. laws have grown loud. Some organizations eye open-source options. Others worry about security risks from different directions.
Those other risks involve Russia. OnlyOffice, the project Euro-Office builds upon, has deep ties to developers in that country. Its Russian counterpart, R7-Office, sells actively to government and military users there. The connection triggered alarms. Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek tried to reassure partners. He said his team could vouch for their version. Doubts persisted. Collabora and others highlighted the origins in public comparisons.
So the fork made sense on paper. Strip away Russian-linked elements. Rebrand as purely European. Host everything on EU soil. Promise better compatibility with existing Microsoft files so migrations feel painless. But LibreOffice sees a trap.
Defaulting to OOXML keeps users chained to Microsoft’s format decisions. Changes in Redmond ripple everywhere. True independence, Vignoli argues, requires embracing the OpenDocument Format as the native standard. ODF remains fully open. It avoids hidden complexities that favor one vendor.
LibreOffice itself traces roots to OpenOffice. The Document Foundation formed in 2010 to keep the project truly independent. It powers installations across governments. The Austrian Army adopted it. Danish ministries have turned to Linux and LibreOffice. These moves reflect steady, quiet progress rather than splashy announcements.
Euro-Office backers counter that their tool supports both OOXML and ODF. Their FAQ stresses great Microsoft compatibility. The interface mimics Microsoft ribbons closely. Users face little retraining. For public sector buyers juggling legacy documents, that matters.
Yet the open letter pulls no punches on marketing claims. It rejects the idea that Euro-Office represents the first open-source office suite from Europe. LibreOffice and its ecosystem came first. Vignoli called the newcomer a “freeware clone of MS Office whose code provenance is undisclosed” in some coverage. He pointed to rebranding driven by current digital sovereignty trends.
Recent reporting adds layers. A Register article from June 9 detailed the exchange. It noted how the attack arrived right as Euro-Office 1.0 launched. The piece captured industry chatter about forking frenzy and license disputes that followed the initial OnlyOffice fork announcement months earlier.
TechRadar Pro covered the same clash in its June report. It highlighted rising worries over possible Russian interference alongside the Microsoft lock-in debate. The story framed both concerns as shaping procurement decisions across the continent.
ItsFoss offered deeper analysis days after the launch. The site examined Euro-Office’s GitHub repository. It lists ODF formats but frames the project around Microsoft compatibility. “Supporting a format and making it your native default are two different things,” the article observed. That distinction could determine whether institutions truly escape vendor control or simply shift it.
Computerworld reported on the initial announcement in late March. It quoted Forrester analyst Dario Maisto. He described public sector interest in alternatives driven by sovereignty, escaping lock-in and avoiding price jumps at renewal time. The piece noted Karlitschek’s view that Collabora’s LibreOffice-based offering has usability limits. OnlyOffice’s Russian roots raised separate customer worries.
These tensions reveal fractures in the open-source productivity world. One side prioritizes format purity and long-term independence. The other bets on user familiarity and quick adoption. Both wave the sovereignty flag. Results vary.
Microsoft, for its part, faces pressure. Several European entities explore exits. Yet switching office suites proves harder than it sounds. File compatibility issues linger. Macros break. Training costs mount. OOXML’s complexity, critics say, forms part of that challenge by design.
LibreOffice developers have felt the heat directly. One contributor saw his Microsoft-hosted account locked after sending bug reports. The episode fueled speculation about retaliation, though Microsoft cited service violations. Such incidents underscore the uneven playing field.
And the Russian angle refuses to fade. Reports trace OnlyOffice development largely to teams in Russia even after headquarters moved to Latvia. R7-Office continues operations there with little sign of severed connections. For defense and government buyers, that history creates unacceptable risk.
Euro-Office attempts to thread the needle. European governance. European hosting. Forked code cleaned of problematic elements, its supporters insist. Yet the default format choice hands Microsoft ongoing influence. Vignoli’s letter calls that out plainly.
Organizations now face real choices. Stick with Microsoft and accept the costs and dependencies. Adopt LibreOffice and invest in training for its different interface and stronger ODF focus. Or try the new Euro-Office and hope its Microsoft-like feel eases transition while delivering on sovereignty promises.
No option looks perfect. The debate will likely intensify as more institutions test these tools. Procurement officers read the open letter. They scan the news coverage. They weigh compatibility against control.
What emerges matters beyond any single product. Europe’s ability to build genuine alternatives to dominant U.S. platforms hangs in the balance. Format standards form the foundation. Choose poorly and independence stays out of reach. Get it right and real options multiply.
The Document Foundation clearly believes the path runs through ODF and established open-source projects with transparent histories. Euro-Office bets users will prioritize familiarity and a European label. Both sides claim openness. Their definitions differ.
Watch how governments vote with budgets and deployments. Those decisions will shape the next chapter of digital sovereignty efforts. They may determine whether Europe reduces reliance on any single power or trades one set of dependencies for another.
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