Balanced Economy Project joins 120 other organisations calling on Europe to kick out Palantir

Organisations state US tech company is “impossible to trust”, citing risks to democracy, civil rights and public wealth

OVER 120 campaigning organisations and unions across Europe, including Corporate Europe Observatory, Global Justice Now and the European Federation of Public Service Unions have issued a joint call to governments and the European Commission to scrap all existing public sector contracts with the US tech company Palantir.

Links to oppression

The organisations state that Palantir’s controversial activities should “disqualify it from involvement in the operations and functioning of democratic governments”.

They cite examples of Palantir’s activities including its supply of data mining tools to ICE, which uses them to track migrants, its technical support for highly controversial ‘predictive policing’ in Los Angeles and New Orleans, and its supply of technology to the Israeli military, which ramped up in 2024. 

Corporate capture of the public sector

The groups also state that Palantir is a “drain on public wealth”, evidenced by its exploitation of tax loopholes to pay extremely low rates of tax, even as it receives lucrative taxpayer funded contracts.

They highlight the risks of deepening dependence on “a class of tech billionaires” who are extending their influence and control over public life. They continue to state that Europe’s increasing dependence on the company for key services is a threat to national and popular sovereignty, exposing public services and national infrastructure to “substantial financial and political risk”.
 

Demands for change
The groups are calling for European governments and public institutions to:

• Terminate contracts with Palantir Technologies and permanently ban the company from future public contracts  

• Develop alternative data solutions compatible with public service – and put in place transparent mechanisms for safeguarding people from mass surveillance  

• Protect democracy and guard against the rise of the far right by investing in and democratising public institutions, providing good jobs and services  

• Work to build international coalitions against corporate capture by companies like Palantir, building and sharing alternative technological developments    

• Divest Europe’s public finance institutions must from Palantir 

You can read the full letter here.