The European Union relies on third countries for over 80% of its digital products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property. “This situation, in terms of data security and economic stability, is simply unacceptable,” assesses Michał Kobosko, a Member of the European Parliament from Poland 2050. This dependence limits Europe’s ability to innovate, compete, and maintain control over its digital economy.
Technological sovereignty means the ability to build resilience and security by reducing strategic dependencies, avoiding reliance on foreign entities and single service providers, and protecting critical technologies and infrastructure. It is defined as the capacity to design, develop, manufacture, control, and safeguard digital infrastructure — including all physical systems and software for data centers, high-performance computing, quantum computing, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, cybersecurity, and communication networks.
The European Parliament is set to vote in the coming weeks on the report by the Industry, Research and Energy Committee concerning European technological sovereignty and digital infrastructure.
“The report was created based on the observation that Europe today is extremely dependent on technology offerings from companies originating in other countries, primarily the largest American tech firms, but also Chinese ones, especially in e-commerce and retail markets. Europe has found itself in a situation where, on one hand, we have not sufficiently supported the development of native tech firms, and on the other hand, we are flooded with foreign offerings, resulting in complete dependency,” Michał Kobosko from the Renew Europe group told Newseria agency.
According to the report, Europe has remained passive for too long in the face of dominance by global technology giants. As highlighted in the Draghi report, the EU imports about 80% of its digital technology, including hardware, software, and IT services. The EU’s share in the global IT and communications services market declined from 22% in 2013 to 18% in 2023, while the share of American firms rose to 38%. Considering the ambitions of the new Trump administration, which announced a $500 billion investment in the key artificial intelligence sector by 2029, this situation is likely to persist.
“This situation is dangerous because if we talk today about Europe’s security, one of its key elements is cybersecurity. The fact that Europeans’ data travel to services on other continents and are owned by companies from other continents can potentially be threatening. Regardless of how friendly these countries are to us now, that can change,” Michał Kobosko warns.
The report clearly indicates that building a European digital value chain — from fiber optic cables and satellites to chips and algorithms — must become a common EU political strategy. Meanwhile, in 2021, the EU accounted for only 7% of global AI investments, while the US and China accounted for 40% and 32%, respectively. The report states that low investments and overly strict regulations deepen the EU’s lag in artificial intelligence.
“In this report, we list exactly the key areas that are necessary for Europe to become more competitive. These are areas related to artificial intelligence because today this will decide Europe’s competitiveness. These are solutions connected to cloud computing, meaning that the data of our users and companies remain in Europe and are subject to European law and compliance. These are also solutions related to telecommunications,” the MEP explains.
The report points to the need for a new approach to the telecom market — the planned Digital Networks Act will set the rules for its consolidation. The European Commission intends to allow the merging of operators but while maintaining competition.
“We support consolidation, but also want to avoid monopolists emerging in the European market, whether nationally or across Europe,” says Michał Kobosko. “Regarding telecommunications, there is also the issue of frequency auctions. In many member states, including Poland, these auctions are treated somewhat like cash cows, sources of significant revenues for state budgets. We believe telecom companies should continue to pay for frequencies because they are scarce resources, but these funds must then be used for purposes related to Europe’s technological development.”
The report also highlights a lack of state-of-the-art semiconductor factories in Europe. European companies produce about 10% of the world’s semiconductors, while Taiwan produces 54% and China 16%. At the same time, according to the IndustriALL union federation, the EU consumed 16% of global semiconductor production in 2021. This dependence exposes the Union to risks during geopolitical tensions and supply disruptions. The European Chips Act aims to provide significant support to foreign companies wishing to relocate production facilities to Europe. The parliamentary report calls for further support of this sector.
“These are just examples of solutions we outline in the report, where we generally talk about the necessity to think about the concept of European digital infrastructure — the entire suite of digital solutions. Europe must think of these as a complete offer for European companies and consumers,” the MEP notes.
The report also devotes significant attention to financing issues. Its authors argue that the EU can regain technological sovereignty by focusing on R&D and investments. Among the recommendations are encouraging private institutional investors to invest in a diversified portfolio of high-potential European tech companies, reforming the European public procurement system so member states can reserve strategic contracts for European firms meeting sovereignty criteria, and mobilizing public-private partnerships to a greater extent.
“Europe, its institutions, especially the Commission, should do much more to financially support the development of European startups and tech companies. There is no single technological solution worldwide that we can say is forever and will never change. The human mind constantly invents new things. We want to support such thinking in Europe,” emphasizes Michał Kobosko. “We do not have worse talents, brains, or specialists in Europe than other countries; we just need to give them a chance. That was the basic premise of our report on Europe’s technological sovereignty.”
