re:publica 2026 takes place May 18–20 in Berlin. Behind the playful motto "#NeverGonnaGiveYouUp," Europe's largest tech-and-society event puts digital sovereignty front and center. This is no coincidence.
Nearly 30,000 people, one thread
Each year, re:publica draws nearly 30,000 expected attendees, 1,000 speakers across more than 20 stages at STATION Berlin. The 2026 edition marks a turning point: at least four major sessions explicitly address digital sovereignty — a first in the event's history.
Day one opens with Karen Hao's keynote "How Silicon Valley is Reshaping the World — via AI" (Stage 1, 11:15 AM). Later that day, Markus Beckedahl, co-founder of re:publica and netzpolitik.org, leads a conversation with Karsten Wildberger, Germany's Federal Minister for Digital Affairs — a face-off that symbolizes the new political priority given to digital sovereignty.
What changed since 2024
Two years ago, digital sovereignty was an end-of-day panel topic. In 2026, it's the throughline. Three factors accelerated the shift.
The Broadcom-VMware shock. Broadcom's acquisition of VMware triggered license hikes of 800% to 1,500% across Europe. In March 2026, CISPE, a coalition of European cloud providers, filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission. The message: technological dependency has a real cost.
The CLOUD Act in practice. In 2025, Microsoft acknowledged it cannot guarantee data sovereignty for its European clients. The EU responded by adopting a Declaration for European Digital Sovereignty in November 2025. Words are becoming actions.
Open source as public policy. Schleswig-Holstein, the first German state, is migrating its entire administration to open source. Its Digital Minister Dirk Schrödter will present the results at re:publica — a session to watch for anyone who still doubts the migration is possible.
The sessions that matter
The re:publica 26 program opens four fronts.
Sovereignty vs Big Tech. Cory Doctorow, who coined "enshittification," and Francesca Bria (former CTO of Barcelona) speak separately on overlapping themes: Doctorow on platform degradation tied to the loss of user control, Bria with her talk "The Authoritarian Stack" on the European alternative built on openness and independence.
Legal action. Max Schrems (NOYB) details litigation strategies against Big Tech. Over one billion euros in penalties already secured. The message: GDPR has teeth — but you have to use them.
Measuring dependency. Laura Dornheim and Jürgen Pfeffer (TU Munich) present a "sovereignty score" developed with the city of Munich — a tool to quantify an organization's digital dependencies. When sovereignty becomes measurable, it becomes manageable.
AI and power. Karen Hao, in her opening keynote "How Silicon Valley is Reshaping the World — via AI," poses the underlying question: whoever controls the models controls access to artificial intelligence.
Beyond Berlin
re:publica is not a trade show. It's a barometer. What's discussed in May shows up in procurement tenders by September and on roadmaps by January.
For Swiss SMEs, the signal is clear: digital sovereignty is no longer a niche topic or a marketing argument. It's a concrete decision axis — for choosing a cloud provider, a collaboration tool, an infrastructure stack.
The European open source ecosystem — Apache CloudStack, Nextcloud, OpenStack, Matrix — now offers mature alternatives to every proprietary building block. The question is no longer "is it possible?" but "when do we start?"
re:publica 26 will pose that question to nearly 30,000 people. The answers are already being built, in the datacenters and server rooms of those who didn't wait.