Franco-German summit to voice fears on EU 'digital sovereignty'

This week, on Tuesday (18 November), France and Germany are hosting a high-level summit on European "digital sovereignty" in Berlin, with hopes of finding a clearer direction for facing the bloc's digital challenges. 

The summit was initially proposed in the 2025 joint Franco-German economic agenda and aims to bring together academics, policy makers, civil society, and business representatives, to discuss AI, issues faced by European startups, cloud and data problems, and the long-awaited digital omnibus simplification package, which is expected to be announced the day after the summit. 

Over the past couple of years, the EU has been reconsidering its heavy reliance on technology hosted and built outside the bloc — especially from the US and China — with the discussion pushed to the forefront recently amid increased US tech hostility towards the EU's digital landscape.

"These issues take on new urgency this year with the progressive deterioration of the transatlantic relationship, as the USA becomes less and less predictable, and more and more authoritarian," said J. Scott Marcus, from the Brussels-based think tank CEPS, to EUobserver.

Stakeholders see the summit by the two nations as a positive step towards finding a less digitally reliant EU.

"I welcome that France and Germany are taking the lead on this important agenda. Europe stands at a decisive moment and we must move from talk to action," said Caroline Stage, Danish minister for digital affairs and a keynote speaker at the summit, to EUobserver. 

"I hope the summit will help set the direction for an ambitious and pragmatic approach to a more sovereign Europe based on openness and stronger competitiveness," she added.

And Jan Penfrat, a senior policy advisor at the European Digital Rights (EDRi) group, echoed the positive sentiment.

"It's encouraging to see European countries finally band together and discuss how to build technology that provides more independence from Big Tech," he told EUobserver

But amid the bonhomie, there are different ideas for how the new EU digital sovereignty should look.

There is currently no single definition of "digital sovereignty".

The term can mean a state's ability to control its own digital infrastructure or an individual's ability to control their own data footprint.

It is also packaged and sold by Big Tech as a service, in which firms offer means to control where data is stored and managed, aiming to reassure governments or citizens, while maintaining their platform's use.

The flexibility of the term leaves room for interpretation and disagreement.

Penfrat said the solutions discussed at the summit, "should not aim to merely replicate Silicon Valley's extractive business model here in Europe." 

Instead, they "must propose solutions for more ethical digital technology that is informed by the public interest, respects fundamental rights, and is based on open standards, open source, and decentralised software"

The tech industry, though, sees a different solution, and does not want Europe to close itself off from international digital cooperation.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international lobbying group that represents Adobe and Microsoft, supports creating a more sovereign EU digital landscape, but will be at the event advocating that Europe's digital sovereignty relies on its ability to govern and audit, not on a tool or software's country of origin.  

"Europe’s sovereignty debate shouldn’t become a race to shut others out. It should be about building Europe up," said Thomas Boué, director general of policy at BSA in their recommendations.

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