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Original article: https://medium.com/@TheDataTank/in-search-for-a-vision-the-eus-approach-to-tech-sovereignty-needs-to-be-steered-by-cearer-public-c88f85cc86f5
The European Commission finally published its proposed European Technological Sovereignty Package last week to strengthen its autonomy and resilience as it develops its industrial strategy and digital ecosystem in a complex geopolitical landscape. In addition to the main document laying out the overall approach, the package includes the non-binding EU Open Source Strategy, the proposal for a Chips Act 2.0 to strengthen the semiconductor ecosystem and boost domestic demand, the also legislative proposal Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) to address cloud dependency, and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy.
In this article, The Data Tank revisits its recent recommendations on the way forward for Europe’s digital and data strategies through the sovereignty lens proposed in this package. The focus on open source, the more explicit mention of environmentally sustainable measures to developing the European cloud computing capacity are welcome signs on the way forward. Yet, a clearer vision that is based on public interest tangible outcomes, as we propose below, is needed to steer Europe’s approach to digital sovereignty. Clarity on outcomes informs infrastructure and policy, and not the other way around. A vision based on public interest principles makes it more obvious why open digital ecosystems need to be accompanied by capacity and infrastructure that enable interoperability, decentralisation and a diverse supply chain. Clarity on outcomes also elucidates why a polycentric, decentralised approach to governance and democracy is required for a thriving resilient innovation ecosystem with a public mandate or social license. This approach also means that agency and resources are devolved beyond the figure of the state, avoiding concentration and lock-in, to a wider range of layers vertically and horizontally, ensuring a dynamic and participatory approach to data governance and innovation. Finally, we examine the development of quantum technologies and infrastructure in Europe as a lens to illustrate our arguments.
Public-interest outcomes as the driving vision
The package by the European Commission proposing an approach to tech sovereignty is a step forward in many ways–such as in its emphasis on openness and environmental sustainability–, but the main document starts with the premise that Europe needs to reclaim its role in the ‘global race for geoeconomic power’. Joining a ‘race’ is a strategy without aim, destined to get lost without a compass. This premise adopts the language of the very same powers that Europe seeks independence from, namely Big Tech and its entanglement with US policy. Perhaps a more useful first step in defining an approach to sovereignty is to base it on a vision that is outcome-based and guided by public-interest aims. This is no denying that Europe has defined an overall vision through its strategic agenda and related policy development, from the European Green Deal, to the Democracy Shield or the Union of Skills. Yet, the aims of the Tech Sovereignty package need better alignment with these.
Clarity on outcomes is important because it can help design and prioritise policies so that investment and procurement are targeted towards those outcomes through approaches that will be sustainable and resilient. As The Data Tank has argued before, these should be public interest tangible outcomes that serve societies and the planet. For example: (i) aligning Europe’s computational strategy with binding targets to reduce absolute emissions in line with Europe’s 2030 climate goals as we have recommended in our response to the CADA consultation in 2025, (ii) designing an industrial policy, cloud and AI computing strategy based on prioritising technologies that can improve science and health within principles of sufficiency, rather than the large scale required for consumer generative AI, (iii) designing policies, diverting funds and building ecosystems that support knowledge commons, information integrity and public interest media, including small and medium-size outlets of diverse languages as we conclude in our recent report on media, democracy and GenAI; (iv) aiming for bottom-up innovation, decentralisation and diversification to avoid power concentration and lock-in. An outcome-based approach to tech sovereignty, then, would mean, ensuring autonomy and resilience and a digital and industrial strategy designed to improve and advance health and science; to build a thriving and diverse competitive economies based on localism, diversification and sufficiency principles rather than top-down concentration; to strengthen information integrity and the media ecosystem; to establish the foundations for resilient democracies, including the protection and fostering of civic agency, social justice and rights; and to ensure environmental protection and climate mitigation and preparedness. Starting with the outcomes, and the services they require, is a step that precedes building and regulating the technologies, infrastructure, data and ecosystems required and addressing vulnerabilities and dependencies that threaten these public interest outcomes.
Developing the capacity to leverage and govern data infrastructures
In addition to gain and maintain control over data infrastructures, Europe needs, across sectors, the skills and competences to build, run and govern data ecosystems. As The Data Tank has argued in previous articles, data stewardship as a strategic set of skills and competences and a function across organisations and sectors is essential to ensure a public interest-first approach to governing data and data ecosystems. The principles of data stewardship as per our proposed approach, ‘Act, Collaborate and Protect’, provide an important governance framework for advancing the EU’s technological sovereignty objectives. By promoting the responsible use and sharing of data, fostering cooperation among public and private stakeholders, and ensuring robust protections for individuals and communities, data stewardship supports the creation of trusted data commons that underpin Europe’s digital resilience, innovation, and competitiveness. As we mention in our latest policy brief: ‘Europe’s emphasis on technological infrastructure, while important, must now be matched by an equivalent investment in human infrastructure. Data stewards, community intermediaries, and public-interest technologists are needed to bridge the gap between data supply and public demand’.
The Data Tank welcomes the emphasis on supporting SMEs, through mechanisms such as the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) to channel and leverage investments. Clarity on the public interest outcomes of sovereignty will help decide the approach to supporting local ecosystems through funds and resources. Developing the data stewardship capacity to leverage and govern data infrastructures should be part of the mentioned ‘support to build advanced digital skills’.
Reiterating our call for polycentric democratic governance
The proposal by the EC hastens to clarify that its approach to sovereignty does not refer to isolation or protectionism. And while the use of the word ‘sovereignty’ as such to refer to strategic independence from tech oligarchies or unpredictable geopolitical dynamics might come and go, its use has deep connotations with state control, not necessarily aligned with the EU’s subsidiarity principles or democracy that respects sub-national and local constituencies. For this reason, as well as in alignment with a public interest outcomes-based approach to tech sovereignty, structurally embedding polycentric democratic governance is key not only from a point of view of values but for a coherent strategy and policy design.
The main document by the Commission refers to taking a ‘human-centric approach’ that upholds ‘EU values’ including ‘human oversight, respect for fundamental rights, inclusivity, equality, non-discrimination and accessibility, in line with the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles’. A human-centric approach is referred to as a lever to the goal of ‘[r]einforcing the ‘European way’ to technological sovereignty’ but we propose looking at it as an outcome too for clarity on the way forward.
Quantum innovation as a case in point
While not included in the EC’s package, tech sovereignty is already emerging in other ways on European soil through, for example, the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure — EuroQCI. In this regard, quantum communication infrastructure is polycentric by design: quantum key distribution is point-to-point and physically grounded, and quantum communication networks create a mesh of links between specific places. For example, as reported in the Secure Internet Observatory of the Media and Journalism Exchange network, the IberianQCI project will connect Portuguese and Galician infrastructures in Valença do Minho and Vigo with terrestrial fibre backbone links, to be further connected with several peninsular cities through satellite links and optical ground stations (OGS). Through EuroQCI and Iberian QCI networks will be increasingly federated, reflecting the distributed quantum competences and skills sitting in many European universities, research centres and small regional hubs.
This is the part of the stack whose native architecture already matches the tech sovereignty it has to realistically aspire to: distributed, federated, bottom up, close to local but interconnected nodes of knowledge and skills. Yet, it sits on a separate track. And there may be relevant strategic reasons for that. What is missing, in our opinion, is treating the distributed, granular layer as a key component of tech sovereignty. Broadening the frame to include it is also giving to European tech sovereignty the shape it claims to be able to thrive.
This quantum track is also led by clearer outcomes as a key pillar of EU’s cybersecurity strategy, including security, safety and resilience for EU, national and local infrastructure and governments, as well as solid connectivity for businesses and individuals. And despite the abstract nature of quantum physics as a complex science, it is led by tangible outcomes in more concrete and local ways, serving as a material map that mirrors the polycentric web of governance and the collaborative ecosystem approach that we propose.
Ultimately, our recommendation is that instead of framing tech sovereignty as a ‘race’, strategies and policies should be steered by clearer public interest outcomes, aligned with evidence, with a polycentric approach to governance and democracy, and with the wellbeing of people and the planet for designing effective and sustainable policies and infrastructure.
