We have too often told the story of European digital sovereignty as a chronicle of failure: a Europe condemned to chase behind American and Chinese giants, a mere open market \u2014 regulated, yet powerless.<\/p>\n
This vision is false \u2014 and it disarms us. In the world that is emerging \u2014 where postwar trust is fading in favor of explicit power dynamics \u2014 Europe already holds decisive cards to resist, innovate, and confront its competitors: critical infrastructures, unique players such as ASML or IMEC, a vast internal market, and an unmatched regulatory arsenal. Provided that these are used as genuine instruments of power.<\/p>\n
This text therefore takes the opposite view of the dominant narrative: it does not ask \u201chow to catch up,\u201d but rather how to play intelligently the strengths already in our hands \u2014 infrastructure, data, companies, market, research, know-how \u2014 to weigh in digital power relations, without renouncing what lies at the heart of the European project: the rule of law, freedoms, and regulatory stability as a breeding ground for innovation.<\/p>\n
Europe did not miss the digital revolution: it changed the playing field. For twenty years, we have repeated that Europe \u201cmissed\u201d the digital revolution, for lack of GAFAM and cloud giants, letting the value of consumer platforms based on personal data slip away. By focusing only on this front, we forget that Europe positioned itself elsewhere: normative power, protection of fundamental rights, industrial infrastructures.<\/p>\n
Rather than chasing the \u201cwinner-takes-all\u201d logic of B2C platforms, it built a regulated information space, protective of privacy and the rule of law, and laid the foundations of a unified digital single market. Above all, it now possesses the industrial assets, skills, and internal market needed to be a major player in the new phase of digital transformation \u2013 industrial data and AI \u2013 provided it changes its political mindset.<\/p>\n
From trust to mistrust: the return of power dynamics. The postwar order rested on institutionalized trust: Bretton Woods, the WTO, NATO, Article 5. This architecture is unraveling, eroded by trade wars, extraterritorial sanctions, export controls on technology, economic espionage, and data extraction. What is emerging is not chaos, but a new grammar: open power relations, even among allies.<\/p>\n
In this world, being a simple \u201clike-minded partner\u201d no longer protects. Mass surveillance programs, the Patriot Act, Section 702, and intelligence activities among allies have revealed the limits of proclaimed fraternity. Transatlantic loyalty has neither prevented espionage nor the unilateral use of legal and technological levers.<\/p>\n
Europe must therefore embrace a strategic transformation: preserve its project of peace and law, while assembling the attributes of power necessary to protect its autonomy of decision. As long as it sees itself as a compliant partner, it remains in a position of subordination \u2013 particularly vis-\u00e0-vis the United States, on which many European countries depend for security and digital infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Mapping dependencies to better rebalance the. A mature digital sovereignty begins with a clear-eyed mapping of dependencies, structured around three levels: infrastructure, data, and services and platforms.<\/p>\n
Infrastructure: sanctuarizing the critical. Infrastructure \u2013 networks, cloud, servers, operating systems, strategic software, HPC, cybersecurity \u2013 largely relies on non-European technologies. The issue is not to nationalize everything, but to sanctuarize what is vital for security, the economy, and democracy, by hosting and operating it under European law. Europe already has key providers: OVHcloud, Scaleway, T-Systems, Orange for cloud; Thales, Atos\/BDS, Stormshield, Orange Cyberdefense, F-Secure, Secunet for cybersecurity; Bull\/Atos and major national centers for HPC; Nokia and Ericsson for networks. Sovereignty consists in mobilizing them where the stakes are vital, through public procurement, certification, and reversibility clauses.<\/p>\n
Data: a European asset. Data \u2014 personal, industrial, scientific, public \u2014 constitutes an informational asset. It only has value through the services it enables. If platforms access our data in exchange for a service (a two-sided market logic), this is a commercial exchange. Two principles must prevail: certain data must be considered strategic and remain within the European legal space; platforms that monetize access to our data and our market must assume the same fiscal and regulatory obligations as others. A VAT on digital services is, in this respect, more coherent than yet another symbolic \u201cGAFAM tax.\u201d<\/p>\n
Services and platforms: prioritizing. For services and platforms, the goal is not to ban non-European actors on principle, but to prioritize: some uses can be entrusted to them; others must be sanctuarized on European solutions, because they concern sovereign functions, critical data, or strategic sectors. Not everything needs to be sovereign \u2014 but everything critical must be able to be, on the basis of explicit public policy.<\/p>\n
A digital space finally unified. At the heart of the European project lies the construction of an integrated digital space, with the same rules across the 27. Five texts form its pillars: GDPR\/DGA for data, DSA for services, DMA for gatekeepers, the Data Act for sharing and secondary use, and the AI Act for artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Taken separately, they are often perceived as constraints. Taken together, they create a true digital single market \u2014 one that was missing in the first phase of the information revolution (2000\u20132025), centered on personal data. Regulatory fragmentation prevented the emergence of players of critical scale.<\/p>\n
The task now is to prepare the 2025\u20132050 phase: that of industrial data (machines, production, mobility, health, energy). Europe is far more industrial than the United States, with an exceptional density of factories and interconnected technical systems. This is the reservoir that non-European players seek to capture. It is the one we must protect, enhance, and monetize according to our rules.<\/p>\n
Underestimated technological strengths. Europe is often portrayed as naked in the technological arena. This is false. While it lacks a digital giant comparable to the GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), it is home to a constellation of actors that together form a considerable base.<\/p>\n
At the forefront is ASML, the Dutch champion supplying the world\u2019s most advanced lithography machines; IMEC, near Brussels, one of the leading global centers for micro- and nanoelectronics research, where engineers from all major foundries are trained. Around this core: OVHcloud, T-Systems, Orange, Scaleway for cloud; Thales, Atos, Stormshield, Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity, Kudelski Security for cybersecurity; Nokia and Ericsson for networks; Siemens, Dassault Syst\u00e8mes, SAP, Hexagon for industrial software; CEA-Leti, Fraunhofer, IMEC, and major laboratories for research.<\/p>\n
These capabilities do not allow us to do everything \u2014 but they are sufficient to sanctuarize our vital functions, offer credible alternatives, and weigh in power relations. In some segments, Europe is even irreplaceable. This is the capital that must be politically organized and put on the table, rather than repeating that we \u201cmissed\u201d the train.<\/p>\n
Internal market and finance: the forgotten weapons. European power also lies in its internal market \u2014 one of the largest and most solvent in the world \u2014 which represents a major share of revenues for large non-European platforms. It must be embraced as a sovereignty lever by imposing our rules (data, competition, algorithmic transparency, taxation) on all who operate within it, and by accepting the possibility of targeted restrictions in cases of coercion or repeated violations, with immediate impact on the valuation of the companies concerned.<\/p>\n
But to convert this into lasting strength, a financial infrastructure of matching scale is still lacking. This is the purpose of the Capital Markets Union, at the heart of the Letta and Draghi reports: as long as our companies must finance themselves externally or on fragmented markets, they will remain fragile or exposed to predation. A genuine Capital Markets Union is a condition of sovereignty, to channel savings toward the long term, finance technological champions, and protect critical sectors (cloud, semiconductors, AI, cybersecurity, quantum).<\/p>\n
Changing the mindset: from \u201clike-minded partner\u201d to asserted power. In reality, Europe has everything it needs \u2014 skills, infrastructure, industrial base, market, standards \u2014 to succeed in the digital revolution. What is lacking is not another admission of a supposed delay, but a clear willingness to manage power relations, especially in the information space.<\/p>\n
A shift in mindset is required at the highest level: to move beyond the comfortable rhetoric of \u201clike-minded partners\u201d and the search for a leniency that no longer comes. We must read our dependencies and strengths strategically; accept that defending the European general interest sometimes requires firmness, reciprocity, and restriction.<\/p>\n
The time for a Europe that apologizes for being a power is over. The time has come for those who can exercise their mandate in the general interest with rigor, European loyalty, and determination \u2014 in a world where trust is no longer sufficient, and where digital sovereignty has become one of the central arenas of power politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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