Require Sovereignty Profiles across the entire chain in our high-stakes tenders#

What this is, concretely#

This commitment is a step up from user-002-integrate-profile-procurement. It consists of turning the consideration of the Profile into a formal requirement for high-stakes tenders and procurement processes — that is, contracts whose criticality, amount, or duration warrant in-depth scrutiny. The requirement covers the entire chain: publisher of the solution, hosting provider on which it runs, integrator who deploys it. A single non-transparent link is enough to compromise overall sovereignty — this is precisely the logic of thesis 6 of the manifesto.

The commitment leaves room for manoeuvre on the definition of “high-stakes”. You may set it by financial threshold (for example, contracts above a given annual amount), by criticality (solutions without which the activity is blocked), by duration (multi-year contracts), or by data exposure (solutions handling sensitive data). The chosen definition must be documented and applied consistently.

Why this commitment matters#

The absence of a Profile on a link of the chain signals either that the provider is not mature on sovereignty issues, or that they prefer not to make some of their dependencies public. In either case, the absence is information useful to the decision. Thesis 6 of the manifesto sums up the dynamic: “the technological sovereignty of a piece of software is measured against its entire chain: production, maintenance, distribution, governance, funding, skills. None of these links is sufficient on its own; each one suffices to break it.”

When a buyer requires Profiles across the entire chain, several effects unfold. The main publisher is encouraged not only to publish their own Profile but also to choose hosting providers and integrators who publish theirs — which propagates the requirement through the ecosystem. Hosting providers and integrators who do not publish find themselves shut out of high-stakes tenders, which creates a real economic incentive. The market gradually shifts from a regime where sovereignty is a marketing claim to one where it is a documented object.

The commitment resonates particularly with thesis 13, which recalls that sovereignty is not a comfort but a condition of business continuity. For high-stakes contracts, that condition merits a proportionate requirement.

A concrete example#

A large French metropolitan authority, in the context of a tender for the renewal of its citizen-relations management platform in 2026, takes this commitment with an 18-month horizon to roll it out across all its high-stakes tenders. The threshold chosen: any tender whose multi-year amount exceeds 200,000 euros, or that touches users’ data, or that is critical for service continuity.

The specifications of the first tender subject to the new requirement include an explicit clause: bidders must provide their Sovereignty Profile, their hosting provider’s Profile, and the integrator’s Profile if it is distinct. The absence of a Profile is not in itself disqualifying, but it must be justified and is the subject of an explicit rating in the evaluation grid, with a 15% weight on the final score.

Of the six bids received, two carry full Profiles across the entire chain. Two have a Profile for the publisher but not for the hosting provider. Two have none. The metropolitan authority selects a publisher with the full Profile, and publishes a feedback report explaining how the requirement worked in practice. Several other French local authorities pick up the wording of the specifications in their own tenders in the months that follow.

Anti-pattern to avoid#

A requirement worded as “the candidate must demonstrate a transparency approach on its sovereignty” without reference to the Profile format or to an evaluation grid is wishful thinking. Conversely, a rigid requirement that mechanically eliminates all candidates without a Profile today would cut the organisation off from the entire market — better a requirement that weighs strongly without eliminating, and that grows with each cycle.

Success indicators#

By the 18-month horizon, you can reasonably consider this commitment fulfilled if the wording of your specifications now integrates the requirement of a Profile across the entire chain for high-stakes tenders, if at least one tender has actually applied this requirement with a weighted evaluation grid, and if feedback is documented internally or published.

→ To mobilise publicly#

Publicly calling on an actor whom you are waiting on transparency from is the public-facing translation of this commitment. The Open letters page lists identified European actors and lets you publish a named factual request, without ranking or judgement. A public call supports the contractual requirement — and the reverse is also true.

JSON schema category: procurement. Default horizon: 18 months. Applicable to: businesses, public administrations.