The European Commission has presented a technological sovereignty strategy aimed at reducing the region's dependence on foreign, primarily American, technology suppliers.
The European Commission has presented a technological sovereignty strategy aimed at reducing the region's dependence on foreign, primarily American, technology suppliers.
The plan involves using an industrial strategy to support European developers so that they can become full-fledged competitors to Big Tech, Politico reports .
The central element of the new package is the Cloud and AI Development Act. The bill provides for funding for products that contribute to the EU's technological independence, simplifies regulation for data centers, and strengthens scientific research. It also plans to create a Eurocloud forum for sharing digital capabilities and develop national strategies for the implementation of AI.
"We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure. This is about protecting our citizens, standing up for their interests and making their own choices," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The document also gives the European Commission the right to vet other countries for their reliability in serving sensitive EU public sectors. Member state governments will have to conduct a “sovereignty risk assessment” for each digital service, taking into account foreign control, data access and the risk of disruption.
As explained by the EU’s technology chief, Henna Virkkunen, the bloc has defined four levels of sovereignty. The highest levels include strict data security requirements that prevent a so-called “kill switch” in the hands of foreign governments. According to her, the US Cloud Act, which allows the US government to demand data from American companies, makes it difficult to achieve these strict requirements. At the same time, according to the European Commission, only about 1% of the most sensitive public services would fall under a complete ban on foreign technologies.
Currently, according to Brussels, EU countries spend 264 billion euros on American technology every year. The cloud services market is dominated by Microsoft, Google and Amazon. The new proposals from the European Commission must now be discussed by national governments and the European Parliament for final approval.
Previously, dev.ua talked about what digital sovereignty is and about the dependence of states on American products.
