Europe’s Path to Digital Sovereignty

From government officials emailing through Microsoft, to citizens paying with Apple and Ukrainian soldiers relying on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites: Europe runs on the tech of a handful of American billionaires. Economist Francesca Bria leads the way to more technological independence.

The dependence on U.S. technology has become so deeply entrenched that even beginning the journey toward digital independence can seem like an impossible task. Enter Francesca Bria, one of Europe’s leading thinkers on technology, innovation, and digital sovereignty. As a Senior Fellow at Stiftung Mercator in Berlin, she leads the EuroStack Initiative, an ambitious effort to develop a European strategy for sovereign digital infrastructure—from AI and cloud computing to semiconductors, data, and public digital services. She previously put these ideas into practice on a smaller scale in Barcelona, where, as the city’s Chief Technology Officer, she helped reduce the city’s reliance on American technology.

What opportunities does Bria see for European AI, European cloud infrastructure, and European satellite systems? And which values should underpin Europe’s technological future?