{"slug": "europes-gathering-backlash-against-palantir-hits-nato-resistance", "title": "Europe’s Gathering Backlash Against Palantir Hits NATO Resistance", "summary": "Spain blacklisted Palantir Technologies from public and private state-controlled entities due to security concerns, aligning with broader European resistance to the US data surveillance firm. The ban targets companies handling sensitive state data, including Indra, Telefonica, and Navantia, despite NATO resistance and US President Trump's frustration with Spain's military spending and foreign policy.", "body_md": "**The AI systems managed by Palantir are becoming even more deeply embedded in the collective West’s war-waging.**\n\nOn Wednesday, President Trump launched yet another hissy fit against Spain, this time from the stage of the NATO summit in Ankara. Trump declared Spain a “terrible partner” and a “wasted cause” — a portmanteau, presumably, of “waste of space” and “lost cause” — and once again called for the termination of US-Spanish trade. This is something even Trump would struggle to pull off given trade with Spain falls under the umbrella of US-EU trade agreements.\n\nTrump tells Scott Bessent and Marco Rubio to cut off trade and diplomatic visits with Spain while the head of NATO watches uncomfortably.\n\n“I don’t want to do any more trade with them, alright? Immediately—don’t even talk to them.” 😭\n\n[pic.twitter.com/qEAO48xnJS]— johnny maga (@johnnymaga)\n\n[July 8, 2026]\n\nThere are, of course, many reasons for Trump’s growing frustration with Spain. The Pedro Sánchez government has repeatedly [refused](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/spain-stands-firm-against-natos-proposed-5-defense-spending-target/3987930) to bow to Trump’s demands to increase military spending to 5% of GDP, arguing that it would not be compatible with maintaining its welfare state and ensuring sustainable public finances.\n\nOddly, just 10 hours after Trump’s tirade, the US president was suddenly full of praise for the Spanish government — apparently because Madrid had finally honoured a request for “lots of payments.” According to El País, all Sánchez had done was explain that he had fulfilled the promised 2% and committed Spanish forced for a NATO mission in Finland.\n\nTrump went from “Spain wasted cause” to “Spain so generous” in the space of 10 hours. What happened? Madrid rocked up with a pile of documents, detailing that it is spending money and where. With big charts and bold-font %. That did the trick.\n\n— Maria Tadeo (@mariatad)\n\n[July 9, 2026]\n\nOther reasons for Trump’s frustration with Spain include, of course, its government’s refusal to allow US forces to use joint Spanish-US bases to wage war against Iran. Spain has also been one of the most outspoken critics of that war as well as Israel’s myriad war crimes in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond. The Sánchez government has also pushed for much closer EU-China cooperation.\n\nMost recently, Spain has sought to sever the public sector’s ties with the US data surveillance firm Palantir. Given the key position Palantir has come to occupy within the US armed forces and three-letter agencies, not to mention Trump’s close ties to Palantir’s co-founder and chairman, Peter Thiel, this is unlikely to have gone down well in the White House.\n\nAs *The Candle* [reports](https://thecradle.co/articles/spain-blacklists-palantir-over-domestic-security-concerns), Madrid last week launched a blacklist of CIA-backed Palantir Technologies from public and private state-controlled entities:\n\nThe Spanish Prime Minister’s Office issued directives to companies under the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) to cease future contracting due to security concerns and worries regarding the vulnerability of sensitive state data.\n\nThe ban targets organizations handling high-level communications and military intelligence, including Indra, Telefonica, and the shipbuilder Navantia.\n\nSpecific casualties of the policy include a Navantia project nearing completion and a negotiated partnership with the Guardia Civil that was vetoed by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska.\n\nDespite these restrictions, an over $18-million contract with the Armed Forces Intelligence Center (CIFAS) remains active until November.\n\nWhile army and navy leadership have urged Defense Minister Margarita Robles to renew the deal, the Spanish Prime Minister’s Office has yet to make an official determination.\n\nSpain’s stance aligns with broader European trends.\n\nIn mid-June, France’s domestic intelligence service ditched Palantir’s IA data tools in favour of a domestic provider in a bid to avoid, or at least reduce, strategic dependency on foreign powers.\n\n“We must use our own AI models; we cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital sphere,” the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu posted on social media. “We cannot rely on tools developed by foreign powers. France must have its own tools.”\n\nLecornu’s office said the French DGSI intelligence agency would supplant Palantir’s tools with those from the French firm ChapsVision, though the process is likely to take several years to complete since the US company’s long-term contract was renewed only a year ago.\n\nThe announcement came just a week after Washington decided to [restrict foreign nationals’ access](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/13/anthropic-disable-advanced-ai-models-us-government-order) to Anthropic’s latest AI model. France must “build real autonomy” and “not depend on the goodwill of certain partners, who are capable of turning off the access tap” for artificial intelligence, the prime minister said.\n\nFor their part, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) and the armed forces (Bundeswehr) have both refused to deploy Palantir’s services, once again in favour of ChapsVision. The announcement came in May, just a few weeks after Vice Admiral Thomas Daum, the Bundeswehr’s chief of the cyber and information domain service, described the idea of granting employees of a private US company access to national databases as “inconceivable”.\n\nThis does not represent a total ban on government agencies’ use of Palantir’s services, however, as some have wrongly suggested. Several state police forces [use](https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-expands-use-of-palantir-surveillance-software/a-73497117) the company’s “Gotham” platform, including Bavaria, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia.\n\nIn a subsequent interview with *Bild*, Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp feigned surprise at the Bundeswehr’s decision not to use his company’s defence technologies. From * Politico*:\n\n“Every serious battlefield in the world uses parts of Palantir. There’s a reason for that,” said Karp.\n\nWhile he expressed understanding that Germany and other major countries want their own autonomous systems, he said he was puzzled by German scepticism — especially given that his co-founder, U.S. entrepreneur Peter Thiel, was born in Germany. Karp, an American entrepreneur, studied in Germany and speaks fluent German.\n\n“Peter and I are the most prominent Germanic and/or German-speaking business people in the world by far and every other country would have found a way to adopt us,” said Karp. “If we were French, the French would wholesale force us to have French passports and only speak French and change our name to Falantir … I don’t understand how Germany believes it can afford this.”\n\nKarp said that “at a general societal level, a lot of the discussions sound like they’re talking about witchcraft.”\n\nThe first European country to shut the door on Palantir was Switzerland, despite aggressive sales pitches from the US company. [According to](https://www.republik.ch/2026/02/18/how-tenaciously-palantir-courted-switzerland) the small Swiss online magazine Republik, “Palantir was turned down outright at least nine times – either because its software was deemed unnecessary or because agencies feared reputational damage.”\n\nThe Swiss Army was apparently interested in acquiring Palantir software until as recently as 2024. But according to an internal report cited by Republik, worries over confidential Swiss military data being passed on to US intelligence agencies ultimately led the army to abandon the project.\n\nWhen Republik reported the story, Palantir responded by launching a right-of-reply lawsuit against the magazine. At the resulting trial, the court [rejected](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/best-of-srg-content/palantir-accepts-ruling-in-dispute-with-swiss-magazine-republik/91666453) 22 of the 23 counterstatements Palantir attempted to force the magazine to publish.\n\nIn all of these cases, the arguments vary but they tend to focus around two core issues: digital sovereignty (having an indigenous system that does not rely, or relies minimally, on US companies) and data security (the risks of using a foreign system to manage sensitive information).\n\nEven in the UK, Palantir’s biggest commercial market in Europe and the location of its European headquarters, things hang in the balance. As we [noted](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/02/the-political-fallout-from-mandelson-gate-has-only-just-begun.html) a few months back, one possible silver lining of the Mandelson-Epstein scandal is that Palantir’s massive expansion into UK government services is finally getting the attention it deserves — and not a moment too soon.\n\nSince 2020, Palantir has won over £670m in contracts with UK civil and defence industries, raising both ethical and national-security concerns among politicians and campaigners. Chief among those are a £330m [contract](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palantir-why-israel-linked-surveillance-firm-embedded-britains-nhs) with the NHS and a £240m [deal](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/corbyn-slams-uk-ps240m-deal-israeli-military-linked-tech-giant-palantir) with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), alongside a £15m [contract](https://www.thenerve.news/p/palantir-technologies-uk-government-contracts-size-nuclear-deterrent-atomic-peter-thiel-louis-mosley) related to Britain’s nuclear deterrent.\n\nIn September last year, just months after then-UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson had brokered a meeting between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Palantir chiefs in Washington, the UK government [signed](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-strategic-partnership-to-unlock-billions-and-boost-military-ai-and-innovation) a £1.5bn investment deal with Palantir to help the UK military develop digital tools, utilise AI technology in decision making, and improve targeting systems. Mandelson [called](https://bylinetimes.com/2026/06/01/my-personal-pride-and-joy-mandelsons-uk-palantir-deal/) the resulting deal “my personal pride and joy.”\n\nBy then, however, serious questions were being asked about the US tech firm’s role in managing the NHS’ federated data platform. As a Foxglove report [lays bare](https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2026/06/17/nhs-england-palantir-delivering-benefit-nhs/), the focus hasn’t been just on the ethical and data-risk implications of Palantir’s involvement but also the government’s “dubious” claims of benefits for the NHS arising from that involvement.\n\nIn the UK, the backlash against Palantir has a strong grassroots element…\n\n🚨 BREAKING: Health workers and activists took over Brighton beach this evening to demand the UK Government terminates Palantir’s contract with NHS England.\n\nPalantir is a U.S. software company that renewed its partnership with Israel’s military in January 2024 – when there was…\n\n[pic.twitter.com/31HoGzu8pY]— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK)\n\n[June 26, 2026]\n\nWhen the Mandelsongate scandal broke in early February, much of the resulting fallout has ended up splattering Palantir.\n\nThat visit led to a £240m ‘strategic partnership between Palantir & MOD. Intel committee needs to examine Mandelson’s potential conflict of interests but also the national security consequences as revealed here in\n\n[@thenerve_news].\n\n2/[https://t.co/Yfx2XZAQF3]— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla)\n\n[February 4, 2026]\n\nSince the scandal erupted, a parliamentary committee has called Palantir’s role in the NHS an “unacceptable weakness” and the mayor of London Sadiq Khan has blocked a £50 million contract with the Metropolitan Police. Palantir’s response was to launch a High Court challenge arguing the decision amounts to stifling free speech.\n\nPalantir says UK police contract wrongly blocked over perceived 'values'\n\n[https://t.co/fcUe5wI5oj][https://t.co/fcUe5wI5oj]— Reuters (@Reuters)\n\n[July 9, 2026]\n\nAs Al Jazeera [reports](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/6/from-manchester-to-downing-street-what-burnham-could-mean-for-palantir), Palantir’s £330 million NHS contract and its wider role in UK government hangs on the future Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s next move:\n\nShould Andy Burnham enter Downing Street as early as July 17, if he is confirmed unopposed as Labour leader, one of his most consequential early decisions will have nothing to do with defence spending, immigration, or the economy.\n\nIt will concern a seven-year 330-million-pound ($440m) contract between NHS England and\n\n[Palantir]Technologies, a leading defence and intelligence software firm in the United States that received no contracts from Burnham’s Greater Manchester administration during his nine years as mayor.The ramifications of such a decision could extend well beyond the NHS.\n\nMedia reports surfaced last week that Burnham is minded to hold that line with Palantir across all of the UK government when he arrives in Downing Street.\n\nWhen approached by Al Jazeera, an Andy Burnham spokesperson said: “We’re not going to comment on individual government procurement contracts or companies and there are legal processes that must be followed.\n\n“However, in general, Andy’s guiding principles on procurement are that we need to be getting value for money for the taxpayer and that we need to be safeguarding people’s data and British interests.”\n\nFor a company that has spent six years embedding itself across several public sector entities – the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, the Financial Conduct Authority – that posture is a real shift from the outgoing Labour administration led by Keir Starmer.\n\nIt remains to be seen what Burnham will do once he is actually in office. Memories are still painfully fresh of the popular Corbynite manifesto pledges Starmer made before becoming PM, almost none of which were honoured. Instead, Starmer prioritised hugely unpopular policies such as digital ID, facial recognition surveillance and the restriction of jury trials.\n\nMeanwhile, as some national governments in Europe close the door, at least tentatively, on Palantir’s advances, NATO is escalating its reliance on the US tech firm’s services. On Tuesday, NATO [announced](https://archive.ph/x4HtO#selection-2703.2-2707.71) that Palantir’s [Maven Smart System](https://archive.ph/o/x4HtO/https://www.elconfidencial.com/mundo/2026-04-23/inteligencia-artificial-guerra-militar-iran-1hms_4343302/) (MSS) has become the Alliance’s operating system at a time of unprecedented battlefield digital transformation.\n\nThe recent NATO summit will be remembered for the unsung death of Europe's much heralded defence sovereignty drive. By surrendering its military operations to Palantir Europe became even less sovereign than the Gurkhas were in Britain's Imperial Army…\n\n[https://t.co/R76CqoFIOA]— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis)\n\n[July 8, 2026]\n\nPalantir’s MSS is already the primary AI operating system for the US military and has played a key role in Israel’s AI-driven targeting in [Gaza](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palantir-ai-technologies-used-in-israeli-attacks-say-reports/3933223) and [pager attacks in Lebanon](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-used-palantir-its-2024-lebanon-pager-attack). MSS is also providing the targeting for Operation Epic Fury, including the bombing of Minab school in which 160 school-age girls were killed.\n\nAnother Palantir “product”, PRISMA, is helping Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) coordinate its drone attacks on Russia, [according](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9GkUkIaOno) to CNN. Now, NATO is “quietly” placing its trust in Palantir to move troops and identify targets in the military alliance’s escalating war against Russia, [reports](https://www.thetimes.com/article/fb34e527-2dd5-424c-9381-3fa19b355e60?shareToken=047de8c6cf9a7e79ee76301b962c7ee9) the Murdoch-owned Times of London:\n\nInside the Nato military headquarters near Mons in Belgium, a new artificial intelligence system runs on a secret network. It will change how the alliance deters — and, if necessary, fights — Russia.\n\nBuilt by Palantir, the American tech company that critics fear has become too powerful, Nato’s Maven Smart System (MSS) is a command and control platform powered by AI that speeds up response times from hours to minutes.\n\nMaven,\n\n[already embedded within the British Ministry of Defence], joins data from Nato members to expose vulnerabilities in the alliance’s defence plans and inform future personnel deployments.It will show positioning across Nato’s eastern flank, relay Russian force movements in detail, alert officials to concerning changes from Moscow that demand an alliance response, and identify targets to strike…\n\nNato announced last week that it had reached full technical operational capability but omitted the word “Palantir” from the press release as many of its members are sceptical that the alliance should be so heavily reliant on the CIA-backed firm’s technology.\n\nObviously, when it comes to NATO, it is the US that generally calls the shots, including presumably on this particular issue. Most of Europe’s governing class were presumably content just to see Trump once again back in the NATO fold and talking about further helping Ukraine strike targets deep inside Russia, thus bringing Europe even closer to all-out war with Russia.\n\nOne can’t help but wonder, though, to what extent the recent blacklisting of Palantir by some European governments represents a genuine shift in policy or rather a negotiating chip in their back-and-forths with the Trump administration. If the latter, it appears to have worked nicely — for now. Meanwhile, the AI systems managed by Palantir, a firm that has no vision of civic accountability, are becoming even more deeply embedded in the collective West’s war-waging.\n\n## 5 comments\n\n-\n**ThirtyOne** Meanwhile:\n\nJapan’s Ministry of Defense has decided to introduce U.S. company Palantir’s artificial intelligence (AI) system into the Self-Defense Forces’ command structure. Palantir, a big data analytics firm, is globally recognized as a leader in military AI, specializing in integrating and analyzing vast amounts of military information and generating operational scenarios. The technology was reportedly used in the Trump administration’s 2025 operation to oust Venezuela’s regime and in the Iran war.[https://www.chosun.com/english/world-en/2026/06/27/HLUOX54EBRAZ5PEFX7DF2TUAMA/](https://www.chosun.com/english/world-en/2026/06/27/HLUOX54EBRAZ5PEFX7DF2TUAMA/)And\n\nGovernment launches Korean-style In-Q-Tel to cultivate security tech giantsThe Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on June 26 at a “Future New Security Innovation Enterprise Fostering Strategy Meeting” held at Cheong Wa Dae a plan to foster innovative enterprises, centered on establishing the Korean-style In-Q-Tel. The CIA-established In-Q-Tel, founded in 1999, has invested in advanced technology companies with the goal of real-world deployment. A notable investment example is Palantir, a military AI firm.\n\n[Reply](#comment-4441369)↓ -\n**lyman alpha blob** Great post again, Nick, and kudos for crediting the Donald with a portmanteau – hilarious!\n\n[Reply](#comment-4441426)↓ -\n**mrsyk** Thank you Nick. This,\n\n*MSS is also providing the targeting for Operation Epic Fury, including the bombing of Minab school in which 160 school-age girls were killed.*…is what you signup for with Palantir targeting. I guess it’s a feature and not a bug?\n\n[Reply](#comment-4441443)↓ -\n**The Rev Kev** Looks like a lot of European countries have worked out that letting Palantir controlling things means they no longer have control of their own military anymore. if there is any trouble the US could switch it off or maybe feed it false data. it would be like handing over the keys of the kingdom to Washington.\n\n[Reply](#comment-4441462)↓ -\n**Michaelmas** Palantir also doesn’t work very well. In the FT —\n\n**NHS hospitals admit to errors in data used to defend Palantir contract: Four trusts confirm there were errors in the underlying hospital data on discharge delays after FT probe**\n\n[https://archive.ph/TnUiA](https://archive.ph/TnUiA)\n\n[https://www.ft.com/content/977aeda7-c055-44b7-8fb7-df1570849035](https://www.ft.com/content/977aeda7-c055-44b7-8fb7-df1570849035)‘Hospital trusts have admitted there are a litany of errors in the data behind … claims about the benefits of Palantir’s technology after an FT investigation identified irregularities. NHS England has claimed that hospitals have seen a 15 per cent decline in delays to discharging hospital patients after adopting a tool built using the US company’s software.\n\n‘However, four trusts confirmed there are errors in the underlying hospital data after an analysis by the FT found they had reported a sudden drop in discharge delays from hundreds or thousands to zero before increasing again sharply — a scenario that would be highly improbable.\n\n‘The errors cast doubt on NHSE’s headline claim about the overall fall in discharge delays, a figure widely cited as evidence of the success of Palantir’s Federated Data Platform, which aims to bring together disparate data in order to boost efficiency in the health service.’\n\n[Reply](#comment-4441694)↓", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/europes-gathering-backlash-against-palantir-hits-nato-resistance", "canonical_source": "https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/07/europes-blacklisting-of-palantir-is-gathering-pace.html", "published_at": "2026-07-10 10:45:16+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-12 04:35:01.761156+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Palantir Technologies", "Spain", "NATO", "Donald Trump", "Pedro Sánchez", "Peter Thiel", "Indra", "Telefonica"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/europes-gathering-backlash-against-palantir-hits-nato-resistance", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/europes-gathering-backlash-against-palantir-hits-nato-resistance.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/europes-gathering-backlash-against-palantir-hits-nato-resistance.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/europes-gathering-backlash-against-palantir-hits-nato-resistance.jsonld"}}