The European Commision is investigating key scientific and policy findings supporting European digital sovereignty and make them available to academia, policymakers and practitioners.
As the first one in a series of policy briefs on Digital sovereignty, this brief underscores that reducing Europe’s critical dependencies will require the EU to consider targeted strategic actions in the field of digital sovereignty. Our current and upcoming research is intended to help build the rationale for these actions by clarifying where interventions are most urgent to address critical vulnerabilities.
EU digital sovereignty, can be understood as the EU capacity to exercise strategic independence in the digital domain while remaining open and connected to global networks*, is essential for reducing vulnerabilities across economic, security, and technological spheres and for strengthening Europe’s competitiveness. Despite major achievements in regulation and rights-based governance, the EU relies on non-EU providers for key technologies such as AI and cloud infrastructure, combined with structural limitations in independently managing and governing data.
A holistic multi-layered framework for digital sovereignty is proposed across four interlinked dimensions:
- empowering people through rights and skills;
- fostering competitive and innovative digital markets;
- securing infrastructures, data, and software;
- ensuring a governance that aligns regulation with legitimacy and global influence.
It also calls for supporting research and development for key critical technologies that can foster Europe’s digital sovereignty, particularly when competitive gaps exist with other geopolitical areas.
*EU digital sovereignty is understood as the EU capacity to exercise its independence in the digital domain while remaining open and connected to global networks. It focuses on the ability to decide, invest, and innovate according to European values of democracy, openness, and the rule of law. Rather than implying isolation or protectionism, digital sovereignty refers to strengthening EU skills, infrastructures, and governance to ensure that digital transformation supports competitiveness, resilience, and trust.