The EU is accelerating its drive for digital sovereignty, with US tech giants now a primary target as fears grow over vulnerability to geopolitical shocks under a Trump administration.
BRUSSELS: A renewed focus on “strategic independence” is seeing the European Union explicitly target its reliance on United States technology.
This shift, driven by geopolitical tensions under President Donald Trump, marks a significant change from previous concerns centred primarily on China.
Top EU officials warn the bloc is dangerously exposed to potential digital coercion. They cite a 2023 report showing over 80% of the EU’s digital products, services, and infrastructure come from foreign countries.
“During the last year everybody has really realised how important it is that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to some very critical technologies,” EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen said. She warned that such “dependencies… can be weaponised against us.”
The wake-up call came last year when Washington sanctioned International Criminal Court judges, cutting them off from US tech platforms. This move starkly revealed the extent of American control over tools integral to European life.
France recently mandated that state employees must soon use domestic alternatives to tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein state became a poster child for the movement by migrating over 40,000 mailboxes from Microsoft to open-source software.
“Dominance of a few tech corporations in public infrastructure limits… our flexibility, threatens our security and inflates our software costs,” the state’s digitalisation minister Dirk Schroedter told AFP. He stated the move showed “digital independence is possible.”
At an EU level, a major “tech sovereignty” package covering cloud, AI, and chips will be unveiled in March. French firm Mistral and German giant SAP have also agreed to work on a European AI-driven cloud solution.
“Digital technologies are no longer neutral tools,” said Sebastiano Toffaletti, secretary general of the European Digital SME Alliance. He argued that when core infrastructures are controlled from outside Europe, “so are the rules, the data and ultimately the leverage.”
However, analysts urge clarity on the end goal. Zach Meyers of the CERRE think tank suggests the most effective strategy may not be to cut US tech use but to double down on areas where America depends on Europe. He argues the EU should focus on gaining “more leverage against” the US in parts of the tech value chain like chip-building machinery or telecoms equipment.
