Success on the road to technological independence from Musk, Meta & Microsoft
My long read for the long weekend
Dear friends!
Past week, we took the first step towards independence from the big digital corporations in the US and China. Their platforms and services, from social media to clouds, are the digital backbone of Europe. These are companies that use the US government to threaten Europe in their favour so that they don’t have to comply with our laws in their business models.
But now the resistance is beginning: with the first initiative report on digital sovereignty, which was adopted by the European Parliament’s Industry and Technology Committee on Tuesday, we are sending a clear message:
In the future, we in Europe will decide on our digital backbone, not the tech bros or corporations.
View & share on LinkedIn here!
At the Eurostack kick-off conference in the European Parliament, organised by Francesca Bria and Cristina Caffarra in September 2024, I proposed an own-initiative report by the European Parliament’s ITRE Committee on European digital sovereignty (available here).
Last Tuesday, we adopted this very report in committee with a broad majority from the EPP, S&D, Renew and Greens. As shadow rapporteur, I fought hard over the last few weeks to achieve this broad majority without the right and far right in the European Parliament and was able to forge a compromise that keeps the EPP on board. Even if this means that some of the compromises are not ambitious enough.
The fact that the far right deliberately tried to hijack this key report and use MEP Knafo’s name to assert its authority on technological sovereignty in the EU shows how contentious this issue is.
This makes it all the more important that we in the committee today maintained the firewall with a clear pro-European majority.
In view of the US government’s almost daily attacks on Europe, the cooperation between tech billionaires and right-wing extremists worldwide, and Trump’s open sympathy for Putin, one thing is clear:
Building an open and sovereign digital infrastructure is no longer just an economic issue, but a question of the defence capability and resilience of our democracy.
Here are some highlights from the report adopted today in the ITRE Committee – and some of the Greens’ more ambitious positions. A table with more details can be found below.
💼 Public procurement: The ITRE Committee says that public investment should give priority to trusted European suppliers wherever possible. Europe has the talent, the know-how and the companies. All we need is demand. The European Union can help create steady demand from the public sector that will boost the growth of European companies.
We Greens pushed for stronger wording that includes a commitment to procure ‘mainly EU-produced products and services’. The EPP (with the CDU/CSU) opposed this.
☁️ Cloud independence: With 70% of the European cloud market controlled by US companies, the compromise calls on the Commission to propose a definition of ‘sovereign cloud services’ in the planned law on the development of cloud services and AI.
We Greens defined sovereign cloud services as those that are ‘fully under the jurisdiction of the Union and free from interference and dependencies’. We were unable to prevail against the EPP (European People’s Party), so the text remains weak and opens the door to weak definitions, or ‘sovereignty washing’!
✨ AI development: The compromise supports AI gigafactories and public-private partnerships to increase Europe’s share of global AI investment from 7%.
We Greens have advocated for a clearer, ‘value-oriented, citizen-centric’ European AI vision. Not catching up with the US and Chinese models, but models that serve the needs of citizens.
🌐 Digital public infrastructure: The compromise lays the foundation for digital technologies for core digital services such as cloud, connectivity and digital identities based on fair and competitive business models with transparent governance, open standards and interoperability.
We Greens wanted a stronger focus on the ‘public interest’ and a ‘data commons model’ with participatory governance.
🔓 Open source: The compromise includes the principles of ‘open source first’ and ‘public money – public code’ to prevent vendor lock-in and promote innovation.
We Greens are advocates of open source technologies. Open source is a strategic foundation for Europe’s digital autonomy. The EPP fought hard against this to defend the interests of companies that rely on proprietary technology (such as Microsoft).
💶 Financing technology: The compromise focuses on expanding public-private investment instruments such as venture capital and creating special financing instruments for start-ups in critical technology areas.
We Greens have proposed a concrete European technology fund of €10 billion for sovereign technologies and digital public infrastructure. This ambition is missing!
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The clear result in the committee is an important signal to the European Commission: sovereignty must be implemented in the new EU budget, in the law on cloud and AI innovation, in the Quantum Act, in the Competitiveness Fund and in all other upcoming legislation.
Europe urgently needs a decisive push for technological sovereignty.
Our economy, our public services and even our democracy depend on digital infrastructures that we neither build nor control ourselves. This report is an important step, but now we need courageous political decisions: we need a clear legal framework that strengthens European industry, promotes open standards and ensures targeted public investment in a digital architecture that serves the citizens of Europe. Europe has the know-how, the talent and the companies to be a leader in this field – what is missing is the political will to invest in Europe.
I will continue to work towards this goal. If you would like to help, please share this email or my LinkedIn post with your contacts and spread the word.
With best regards,
Alexandra Geese
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Here is a more detailed analysis of the compromise and our Green position.
