This may be blindingly obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: If Amazon was willing to actually give up control of AWS EU, then this kind of announcement would be entirely surplus to requirements. But they will (obviously and rationally) not be giving up control of AWS EU because that would essentially have to be an act of charity, so they need to dress it up a bit.

(Before hitting ‘add comment’ I’m taking a moment to consider if I’m being overly cynical. But no, I really don’t think I am. But my company does compete with AWS, so that is a bias.)