Many European companies may be moving to cloud now but they’re two years behind America in terms of cloud adoption, according to research house Gartner.

The analysts have put the difference down to a wide range of problems, including the diversity of Europe’s 44 different nations, the recession and Euro crisis, as well as European privacy rules relating to data protection.

Gartner elaborated upon these “inhibitors” and commented on each one. The report stressed that there were ways of using cloud safely, despite worries about privacy.

Similarly, Gartner noted complex business-to-business (B2B) issues related to Europe’s diversity, stating that because cloud computing was a fast growing business it will subsequently slow down the productivity of those who want to offer cloud services across Europe.

Regarding the EU in general, Gartner commented that while the EU legislative process was extremely secure, it was time-inefficient because of it and …