Europe is late for the tech race, but it can still become a digital powerhouse. Nino Galetti, Director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s Representation in Italy and Malta, charts the path to the EU’s tech sovereignty
Although Europe is the biggest research hub in the fields of AI and robotics, it still has not been able to convert this primacy in economic and technologic prowess. The main causes of this delay reside in the absence of a coordinated central framework of industrial policy, which has caused individual member states to make decisions independently from the European institutions.
If we may recognize one merit in the pandemic, it’s that it reminded the EU of the strategic need for European sovereignty in matters of digital platforms and technologies. Industrial champions, secure clouds for citizens and companies, defense systems and security from external interferences, widespread and efficient broadband infrastructures: we have accumulated at thirty-year delay, at least.
This delay could have serious consequences, for instance, in the defense sector, considering the growing role and the effects of AI in military conflicts. Back in 1993, in his white paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, [Jacques] Delors had already identified the digital sector as one of the challenges of global competition.
Given the delay in this field that Europe has accumulated in the past decades, it is clear that we cannot run after the USA, Korea, or China in the production of microprocessors. Instead, Europe is called to make strategic choices that can make it a leading actor on the global stage.
As the European Commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, said last summer: “There are three fundamental pillars: computing power, control over our data and secure connectivity[…]The time has come for Europe to take back control of its strategic interests to guarantee its sovereignty. Europe must find its technological sovereignty, which has become a common need.”
The way I see it, Europe must be capable of laying the foundations without renouncing multilateralism, and thus avoid falling into fear of isolation or protectionism, which are opposed to our interests. It seems to me that the pandemic has awoken the EU’s political will of, and thanks to the Recovery Fund, supported by Chancellor Angela Merkel since the beginning, there are the means to achieve these political ambitions.
The entirety of European programs aimed at reinforcing European sovereignty benefits of a 20% budget increase with respect to the previous multi-annual budget, even 30% considering Brexit. Furthermore, the new Digital Europe program will allow further investments –to the tune of over €20 billion –and the Connecting Europe Facility program has nearly doubled since the previous seven years. And the European Parliament has the means to have Europe do even more.
