European policymakers are increasingly focusing on digital sovereignty. This is due to the growing awareness that the European Union is highly dependent on foreign players for digital services, which makes the EU potentially vulnerable to external influences. Consequently, the EU wants to strengthen its own position and become as self-sufficient as possible in terms of digital technology.
The war in Ukraine brought geopolitical tensions to a head and caused a clear acceleration in this notion last year. As a result, European institutions are pushing even harder to cut down digital connections with foreign – and therefore potentially unreliable – actors.
Legitimate concerns
Applied to the world of digital technology, this tendency is particularly evident in European legislation around data protection, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being the best-known example. For European companies however, these regulatory initiatives have major implications. For instance, using cloud technology offered by US-based hyperscalers without concern currently entails a GDPR violation, as these companies are not compliant with the European regulation.
Vincent Dock, Senior Strategy Manager for the B2B market at Proximus: "Whilst concerns about Europe’s own digital and technological sovereignty are certainly valid, they create a lot of confusion. Companies are hesitant to migrate their sensitive data to the cloud as they would be violating GDPR regulations. They want to benefit from the advantages this technology offers but are legally not allowed to take the next step. It is like children looking at the shop window of a sweet shop and not being allowed in."
New business opportunities
This tension became evident in 2020, when the so-called Schrems II ruling was pronounced, stating that companies in breach of GDPR legislation could be effectively fined. At the time, this decision showed how technology has increasingly become a major subject of geopolitical tensions.
For European integrators, this context generates new business opportunities. "At Proximus, we are looking for ways to continue to use the public cloud for our data. As a result, we developed extensive internal expertise around using US cloud providers in a GDPR compliant way. We now want to offer this expertise to our customers and help provide a solution to resolve the dilemma that many European companies face today. Our intention is to market these solutions as of 2023."
Clear negative impact
On the downside, Dock emphasises above all the pernicious repercussions of the current situation. "The general consequence is that companies have chosen to go back to developing in-house solutions for their data, thus stopping the migration movement to the cloud. However, this goes against the global trend, and de facto causes a slowdown in technological growth. This is undeniably harmful for our European economy."
Moreover, Dock fears that the intensification of geopolitical tensions reduces the chances of an adjustment to the current situation. "While it is absolutely right to put sovereignty at the centre of the political debate, Europe is currently confusing this aspiration with technological sovereignty. The European institutions have already indicated that they are keen to resolve the problem, but we feel that the existing structures will struggle to do so,” he concludes.