With President Donald Trump more unpredictable than ever and transatlantic ties that reach new minimums, calls are stronger for Europe to declare the independence of American technology.
From Microsoft to Meta, Apple and Uber, cloud computing to AI, much of the daily technology used by Europeans is American.
The risks they bring were discussed before Trump returned to power, but now Europe is becoming serious, pressing to favor European companies in public contracts and support the European versions of well -known US services.
As Europe faces Trump’s rates and threatens to tax US technology unless the two parties achieve an agreement that avoids total commercial war, there is a growing sense of urgency.
Technological sovereignty has been in front and in the center for weeks: the European Union presented its strategy to compete in the global artificial intelligence career and is talking about its own payment system to rival Mastercard.
“We have to develop our own abilities when it comes to technologies,” said EU technology chief Henna Virkkunen, identifying three critical sectors: AI, quantum and semiconductors.
A key concern is that if the ties worsen, Washington could potentially arm the US digital domain against Europe, and the Trump administration already points to the technological rules of the block.
That is giving a new boost to the demands of the industry, experts and EU legislators for Europe to reinforce their infrastructure and reduce dependence on a small group of US companies.
“Trusting exclusively on non-European technologies exposes us to strategic and economic risks,” said EU legislator Stephanie Yon-Coustin, who focuses on digital problems, pointing out the limits of the United States in semiconductor exports as an example.
Push ‘Buy European’
The data paint a marked image.
Around two thirds of the European cloud market is in the hands of the American Titans Amazon, Microsoft and Google, while the proportion of European cloud suppliers has constantly decreased, falling to 13 percent in 2022.
The twenty -three high -tech imports of the block in 2023 wine from the United States, only surpassed by China, in everything, from aerospace and pharmaceutical technology to smartphones and chips.
Although the idea of a European social networks platform to rival Facebook or X has a short term, officials believe that in the crucial field of AI, the race is far from finishing.
To boost European AI companies, the EU has requested a “European preference for critical sectors and technologies” in public procurement.
“The incentives to buy Europeans are important,” Benjamin Revcolevschi, executive director of the French cloud supplier Ovhcloud told AFP, who welcomes the wider impulse made in Europe.
Alison James, European government relations led in the IPC electronic industry association, summarized: “We need to have what we need for our key industries and our critical industries to be able to do our things.”
There are also calls for greater independence from US financial technology, with the head of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde that advocates a “European offer” to rival US payment systems (Mastercard, Visa and Paypal) and Chinese (Alipay).
Cautious the call, the EU Capitals has discussed the creation of a “truly European payment system.”
Industry experts are also aware that building technological sovereignty requires a massive investment, at a time when the EU is investing money in defense.
In an initiative called Eurostack, digital policy experts said that creating a European technological ecosystem with layers, including AI, would cost 300 billion euros ($ 340 billion) by 2035.
The Progress Chamber of the US Commercial Group. It makes it much higher, more than five billion euros.
Different values
The US Vice President, JD Vance, has signed up for technological regulation by denouncing the social and economic model of Europe, accusing him of querying innovation and unfairly hindering US companies, many of which have aligned themselves with the Trump administration.
But for many, the rules based on blocks of the block are another reason to fight for the independence of technology.
After repeated abuses of the great American technology, the EU created important laws that regulated the world online, including the Digital Markets Law (DMA) and the Digital Services Law (DSA).
To disgust from the US digital giants, the EU in 2018 introduced strict rules to protect the data of European users, and last year marked the beginning of the world in the wider safeguards of the world in AI.
In practice, supporters say that the DMA encourages users to discover European platforms, for example, give users a browser option, instead of Apple or Google predetermined value.
Bruce Lawson, of the Norwegian web browser, Vivaldi, said there was “a significant and rewarding increase in downloads in Europe,” thanks largely to the DMA.
Lawson insists that it is not about being anti -American.
“It is about highlighting ourselves about the dependence on infrastructure that have very different values about data protection,” Lawson said.
Pointing out the rules in Europe that “they do not necessarily exist in the United States,” said users simply “prefer to process their data by a European company.”
This story was originally presented in Fortune.com
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