Digital sovereignty: safeguarding the European model in the age of the tech coup

The US government decision to block non-US citizens from accessing Anthropic’s most advanced AI models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, shows how much Europe is at the mercy of foreign governments and companies

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By Alex Agius Saliba and Laura Ballarin Cereza,
Brussels
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The digital space has become one of the primary arenas of modern life.

Most Europeans spend part of their day online, interacting on social media, buying products from online marketplaces, seeking advice from AI assistants, and texting with people through digital communication platforms. The digital sphere shapes our economy, our democracy, and the development and mental well-being of people, and especially children.

And we should not fool ourselves.

Whether we call it a Tech Coup or a Digital Empire, it is clear that democratic governments have gradually ceded too much power to large technology companies and their tech oligarch owners, allowing private firms to exercise functions that traditionally belonged to public institutions.

The question is no longer whether the digital realm should be governed. The question is who governs it, and in whose interests.

It has been the EU that first stood up against Big Tech interests.

Over the past several years, we have established the world’s most ambitious framework for digital governance. Through landmark legislation such as the GDPR, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, the Data Act and the AI Act, Europe showed the world what a rules-based approach to the internet looks like.

We adopted laws that ensure transparency, accountability, competition, user protection, and democratic integrity in an increasingly complex digital ecosystem. 

These regulations are an affirmation of a principle that lies at the heart of our model: access to the European market comes with responsibilities towards our consumers, also in the digital space.

Companies that wish to benefit from Europe’s vast digital marketplace must respect the rules established by its citizens and institutions. 

Unprecedented influence

This is particularly evident in the debate surrounding children’s access to social media.

The business model of digital platforms depends on capturing and retaining attention, especially among younger users. Their time is monetised, and their vulnerability becomes a commercial opportunity.

This is not an unintended consequence; it is a feature to maximise time spent online, to encourage compulsive behaviours and generate ever more detailed user profiles for commercial and political purposes.

In a world where algorithms increasingly shape public discourse, a small number of private actors now possess unprecedented influence over the visibility of ideas and the circulation of information. This is directly affecting the conditions under which democratic debate takes place.

Opaque systems owned by tech billionaires today determine what billions of people see, read, and discuss. And their accountability cannot be optional and should not be treated as a purely commercial matter.

Digital sovereignty is not simply a technological objective; it is a democratic necessity.

A growing pressure to weaken or dilute Europe’s digital regulations should therefore be understood in a broader geopolitical context. Criticism often arrives under the banner of competitiveness or innovation, but abandoning regulatory safeguards would not strengthen European sovereignty. It would deepen dependence on external actors whose interests do not necessarily align with Europe’s democratic values or strategic priorities.

This dependence remains one of Europe’s greatest vulnerabilities.

Today, the European Union relies on non-EU companies for over 80 percent of digital products, services, infrastructure and intellectual property. As a result, vast portions of Europe’s economic, social, and political life rely on decisions made elsewhere.

The US government decision to block non-US citizens from accessing Anthropic’s most advanced AI models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, shows how much Europe is at the mercy of foreign governments and companies.

This makes us vulnerable. If it comes to an AI trade conflict, we need to protect the European companies that will be cut off from the use of cutting edge AI solutions. The only way that can be done is by strengthening our tech autonomy and developing our own AI-capacity to shield Europe from Trump’s unpredictability. 

True sovereignty cannot be purchased. It must be built. 

Sovereignty requires investing in research, but Europe should focus on building European digital infrastructure, producing European semiconductors, developing EU artificial intelligence alternatives, ensuring sufficient cybersecurity capacity, and establishing European data centres that offer true sovereign cloud capabilities while not compromising on sustainability or fundamental rights.

This will require a genuine European capital market capable of financing this innovation at scale.

It means supporting startups and helping innovative companies grow rather than seeing them acquired before they mature.

And it means using public procurement strategically to strengthen a European digital ecosystem aligned with democratic principles. 

In this sense, the Socialists & Democrats welcome the European Commission’s Tech Sovereignty Package as a first step to deliver what Europe needs but we will work hard to make it even better.

Europe is ready to change its course on tech dependency and move towards the consolidation of a digital ecosystem that is ‘Made in the EU’.

An ecosystem where our essential services are in safe hands and we cannot be blackmailed with a potential “kill switch” on foreign tech that would induce an IT and infrastructure blackout.

At the same time, digital governance must be accompanied by greater transparency and accountability.

That is why the Commission proposals on an EU open-source strategy matter if we want to become less dependent on big tech proprietary platforms – not on the fringes, but as a central element of Europe’s approach to industrial policy for the digital age.

We need independent audits of major platforms, meaningful algorithmic transparency, and swift and effective enforcement of the rules that are in place. The principle should be straightforward: what is illegal offline should not become acceptable online, and those who profit from harmful digital ecosystems cannot be exempt from responsibility. 

Europe stands today at a pivotal moment. The foundations of a sovereign digital future have been laid through regulation. The next step is to complement those rules with investment, innovation, technological capacity, and political resolve.

Protecting children online, defending democratic institutions, and building strategic autonomy are not separate challenges. They are different expressions of the same objective: ensuring that Europeans retain the collective capacity to govern their digital future according to their own values.

Digital sovereignty is not merely an economic ambition – it is the democratic project of our time.

This stakeholder article is paid for by a third party. All opinions in this article reflect the views of the author and not of EUobserver.

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The US government decision to block non-US citizens from accessing Anthropic’s most advanced AI models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, shows how much Europe is at the mercy of foreign governments and companies

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Author Bio

Alex Agius Saliba is S&D vice-president for communication, campaigns and digital Europe.

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Laura Ballarin Cereza is an S&D MEP and coordinator for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

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