Our digital sovereignty is vital. Social networks, e-commerce, artificial intelligence (AI) assistants… Every day we spend an average of four to five hours in this information space through our mobile phones and other screens. It is essential to organize, structure and regulate it. Europe has already got to work. Between 2022 and 2024, our digital laws were approved by an overwhelming majority of deputies and unanimously by member states. The DSA (social networks), the DMA (digital markets), the Data Act and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act constitute the common basis for the protection of our children, our fellow citizens, our businesses and our democracies against all kinds of abuse in the information space. These four great laws reflect our fundamental values and the principles of our rule of law.
Today this legal framework is the most advanced in the world. Europe can be proud of this. Our immense digital marketplace is open to everyone. But actors who want to benefit from it must respect our conditions. We are not afraid of displeasure: if the laws are not respected there is no access to the market. This is the norm with our large partners. Is the United States or China refusing to enforce their laws to please us? We apply ours quickly. This must be the first expression of European digital sovereignty.
United States, China, Russia, Europe… The new state digital empires are distinguished by their divergent visions and strategies of information space, which reflect their values, their sovereignty priorities and their relationship with the market and the State. The American model is based on the primacy of private actors and minimal regulation. This is an ultra-liberal approach, in which large companies, the GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft), dominate cyberspace and try to impose their own rules. His vision of the world. And the dependence that this entails. In the East, the Chinese model is based on control and confinement. In cyber sovereignty, mass surveillance and the defense of local norms. In an autonomous digital infrastructure (cloud, 5G, Intelligence A) on which national champions rely (Huawei, ByteDance, Alibaba…). The State directs, monitors content and uses data as political, geopolitical and commercial leverage. For its part, Russia adopts an integrated strategic vision of information space and cyberspace, considered as an extension of the national territory. Moscow claims information sovereignty, supports multipolarity in global Internet governance, and supports strict content control in the name of national security and cohesion. Russian information warfare campaigns are, as is known, privileged tools to influence public opinion, destabilize our democracies and promote their geopolitical interests.
Faced with unbridled liberalism and authoritarian dirigisme, Europe has chosen its own path. It has bet on the strength of its large internal market, with 450 million citizens. This implies having the political courage to use it without wavering in power relations. The legal arsenal of our information space aims to ensure its homogeneity, the protection of users, the transparency of agents’ actions and the preservation of the foundations of our democracies. So how can we be surprised that some are trying to undermine it, to methodically undermine the four great pillars of our digital space? Let’s not be intimidated. Let us rather give up on dismantling them (through the so-called laws bus or others) a few months after their application under the pretext that they are too complex or even anti-innovative. The transatlantic origin of these attacks fools no one. Let us not become useful fools. Preserving the integrity of our digital legal pillars at all costs, including at the geopolitical level, is, therefore, the second expression of our digital sovereignty.
Sovereignty is built. It was not purchased. Europe, which does not have world-leading companies in the digital field, will only be able to guarantee credible and lasting sovereignty if it is able to combine ambitious regulation, massive investments, sovereign innovation, coordinated action and the valorization of talent. We need to invest in research, critical infrastructures (sovereign cloud, networks and satellites, semiconductors). Support the continental sector along the entire value chain (AI and algorithms, cybersecurity, quantum, data centers). Train and attract more and more high-level digital experts. Promote the emergence of leaders who can compete with big tech companies, which involves funding them start-upsconsolidate innovative SMEs and create native European platforms. To this end, a single capital market is a top priority to have a financial playing field comparable to that of the United States. And so that our projects do not remain prototypes or showcases, but become global standards. Autonomy also requires us to stop depending on non-European jurisdictions for our data (Patriot Act, Cloud Act…), to localize and certify our critical infrastructures, while promoting open source. Countering external pressures, developing and affirming the impermeability of our sovereign infrastructures: this must be the third expression of our digital sovereignty.
