EU institutions survive Microsoft outage unscathed

BRUSSELS — The European Union institutions kept calm and carried on regulating on Friday, as many other parts of the world muttered at their computers over a massive digital outage at U.S. tech leader Microsoft. The European Commission, Council of the EU and European Parliament were able to carry on business as usual, with systems remaining largely unaffected.

Microsoft’s global outage , which disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot started on Thursday, with internet traffic monitoring site Downdetector reporting issues in at least 74 countries. The tracker logged nearly 140,000 reports of Outlook problems at its peak. Microsoft on Friday morning said recovery was still uneven .

“At this time, we have no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident. We will continue to treat this with urgency until full mitigation,” it said. At the European Commission “the impact … is very limited and does not affect our operations,” spokesperson Thomas Regnier told POLITICO.