More than 100 civic groups from 15 European countries staged coordinated protests Friday and Saturday, November 6 and 7, against the rapid expansion of energy-intensive data centers, calling for an immediate moratorium on new large-scale projects, Yahoo News reported. The demonstrations under the banner “Stop Dirty Data Centres” took place in Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom, with simultaneous actions in at least nine European capitals including Berlin, netzpolitik.org reported.
The protests land as the European Union pushes to triple its data center capacity within five to seven years to compete with the United States and China in artificial intelligence. Communities across the continent are resisting the projects’ demands on water, energy, housing, and public infrastructure.
EU Aims to Triple Capacity Within Five to Seven Years
The European Commission unveiled its AI Continent Action Plan in April 2025, setting a target of at least tripling data center capacity in the EU within five to seven years. Annual investment in European data center projects has already more than doubled, rising from €12 billion in 2020 to €25–26 billion this year, according to the PwC Global Data Centre Outlook 2026-2050 cited by Yahoo News. Total spending is projected to reach €176 billion between 2026 and 2031.
Communities Across Fifteen Countries Demand a Construction Halt
Organizers say the actions take place “against the backdrop of growing concerns about the impact of data center expansion on local communities, public infrastructure, land, water and energy consumption, housing, jobs, and the cost of living,” Yahoo News reported. “Today, communities across Europe that are fighting against the siting of energy-, water-, and land-hungry data centers in their neighborhoods are stepping onto the European political stage,” said Owen Espley, coordinator of StopDirtyDataCentres.eu. The campaign demands that political leaders at European, national, and local levels impose moratoriums on large-scale data centers so their concerns can be addressed and the impacts thoroughly reviewed.
Activists Protest Data Center Plans
In Berlin, activists planned a demonstration Friday at 1 p.m. in the Mariendorf district against a proposed data center at Lankwitzstraße 45, and a nationwide conference Saturday titled “Widerstand vernetzen – Rechenzentren verhindern!” (“Networking Resistance – Preventing Data Centers!”), netzpolitik.org reported. The Green League and the initiative “Nodes of Resistance” organized the event, with AlgorithmWatch participating through an email campaign targeting lawmakers.
Singapore and the US Offer Precedents for Resistance
Singapore imposed a moratorium on new data centers in 2019 and lifted it in 2022 only after implementing stricter rules for new projects, netzpolitik.org noted. In the United States, local groups have stopped or delayed data center projects worth more than $300 billion since the start of 2025, according to Data Center Watch, a project of 10a Labs.
German Parliament Faces Pressure Over Loosened Efficiency Rules
In Germany, the Bundestag is expected to vote soon on a new Energy Efficiency Act that would loosen regulations for data centers. AlgorithmWatch collected more than 160,000 signatures over the summer against the plans, and more than 20,000 people have since emailed members of the SPD and CDU/CSU according to AlgorithmWatch and the Umweltinstitut München, Julian Bothe of AlgorithmWatch said that the CDU/CSU parliamentary group wants to weaken the sustainability rules for data centers, and Michelle Thorne, strategy director at the Green Web Foundation, said that data centers make life more expensive for people across Europe and make us dependent on big US tech companies and on oil, gas, and coal.
Questions Protesters Are Raising
Organizers say more than 100 groups from 15 countries are involved.
The European Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan, presented in April 2025, aims to at least triple EU data center capacity within five to seven years.
Singapore imposed a moratorium on new data centers in 2019 and ended the pause in 2022 after introducing stricter rules for new projects.
Whether European policymakers will adopt the moratoriums the protesters demand remains unanswered.
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