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.