Paul Sharratt

Paul Sharratt is Policy and Research Lead at the Sovereign Tech Agency Germany, the German government institution that funds open-source software critical to public digital infrastructure. He participates in the open-source panel at the inaugural Sovereign Tech Europe summit in Brussels on 23 April 2026, alongside Laszlo Igneczi and Felix Reda .

The Sovereign Tech Agency (Sovereign Tech Fund until 2024) operates under the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. It provides direct funding to maintain and strengthen open-source software dependencies that underpin critical digital systems — a model that treats open-source maintenance as public infrastructure rather than volunteer-driven community effort. Notable investments include funding for the curl networking library, OpenSSL, and GNOME.

Sharratt's research focus on open-source as a sovereignty strategy reflects a German federal approach that differs from the Commission's procurement-led model. Open-source code is by definition not subject to foreign legal jurisdiction, making it structurally preferable for sovereignty purposes: no US CLOUD Act exposure, no vendor lock-in, no licence revocation risk. His panel appearance at Sovereign Tech Europe positioned the German open-source funding model as a transferable European template at a moment when the Commission's own cloud framework had just been criticised for including a US-linked joint venture.