The Draghi report has highlighted dependencies and the need for the EU to strengthen its digital infrastructure, particularly in areas like high-speed broadband networks, computing and AI. The EU Commission now has a Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen. Several EU initiatives have been launched, but the worker´s perspective is often missing in the debate, and significant structural and regulatory obstacles to achieving digital sovereignty remain.

 

Justin Nogarede is a Senior policy officer at Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Competence Centre on the Future of Work in Brussels, focusing on data protection at the workplace, as well as on the political economy of digitalisation. In the past, he also worked as policy officer in the Secretariat-General of the EU Commission. We spoke to him about the challenges and progress regarding EU digital sovereignty.

 

AK EUROPA: What is digital sovereignty about and why does it matter?

 

Nogarede: There's a perception that the EU is behind on several key digital technologies. Or, more precisely, that for the provision of those technologies, it depends on foreign, mainly US-based and some Chinese firms. This includes for instance all sorts of consumer-facing platforms (e-commerce, social media, search, browsing), cloud computing services on which authorities, universities and hospitals rely, as well as mobile phone operating systems. This not only undercuts EU competitiveness, but also our public debate, democracy, and working conditions. In the US, privacy, workplace democracy, and the concept of public space are for instance less important than in many European countries, and that is reflected in the design of the US platforms that we use regularly.

 

In addition, there are various security risks, with the US and China using their technological leverage to spy on European business and governments. Beyond that, there is the possibility that the US government forces large cloud providers like Microsoft, Amazon or Google to shut down operations in the EU, for instance in the context of a trade dispute. This would instantly cripple public services and create chaos across the EU. This is not just hypothetical. Microsoft already shut off the email from the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, after pressure from the US Government.

 

AK EUROPA: What strategy should the EU pursue?

 

Nogarede: This is not something that can be solved in an instant, as it is the result of decades of underinvestment and ignorance. Trying to replace US tech giants with European would of course reduce our dependence and the associated risks, but it is not enough. You would still end up with digital services that fuel addiction, enable private power concentrations, and weaken the social fabric. The EU must think differently – the key challenge is figuring out how to build more public digital infrastructures rather than just facilitating the rise of a European Google.

 

In other words, the goal is to ensure that digital technology serves the public interest. We need to build open, interoperable, and democratic digital infrastructures that align with important rights like data protection. That is a more sustainable path to sovereignty. It's essential to support ecosystems that encourage collaboration and innovation rooted in societal needs. The focus should be on empowering citizens and creating resilient infrastructure that isn’t vulnerable to external pressures.

 

AK EUROPA: How can the EU ensure that no one is left behind?

 

Nogarede: You do this by treating digital technology not as an end in itself, but by asking important questions like, how can we support quality of life for an aging population? And then you can ask if digital technology could be useful for that or not. Sometimes yes, sometimes not. I think these questions are not being asked, because the public sector has left technology design to private actors. It sees its role mainly as supporting startups and creating “framework conditions” for innovation, rather than steering the direction of technology to societally useful directions. So the decisions are being made by people who control a lot of capital. They decide how resources are being allocated, for instance on AI. And they are not interested in creating good jobs or quality public services. Their interest is to maximize profit. Sometimes that aligns with the public interest, often not.

    

We can do much better things with technology, but then we need to change who is funding, building and managing it. And right now, I don't really see that. At the moment, the EU does plan to invest tens of billions in AI, but only to completely buy into the technological vision set by private actors in the US. The EU looks at “Open AI” and thinks oh, we also need to have this mass scale, we need to add another massive Large Language Model, assuming that somehow good things will happen afterwards. But that just doesn't automatically follow. The public sector needs to do better than that.

 

AK EUROPA: How can we start doing things differently?

 

Nogarede: Broadly, public authorities need to build technological expertise and take more responsibility for the digital technology aspects of public services they provide – it should be a crucial part of their mission. With more capacity, they could for instance experiment with creating local platforms for public use, around care, mobility, and more. Online platforms are phenomenal technology – super efficient in matching supply and demand. But they are often privately owned, and their market power is a huge drain on local economic activity. Think of Uber, which takes up to 20-30% of each ride, for practically no marginal cost, money that is sucked out of local economies and often ends up abroad. That is one familiar example, but platforms are increasingly intermediating all sorts of economic activity, from care and babysitting to food delivery and groceries.

 

If such platforms were public, or at least designed with the public interest in mind, they could facilitate important collective interests, like the payment of social security benefits, algorithmic transparency and decent pay for drivers, complementarity to existing public transport options, etc. etc. But to succeed, we need to provide incentives, such as tax breaks. Public money should be spent on digital tech that reflect EU public values, and where possible on providers that pay taxes here.

 

AK EUROPA: What needs to change in the long term?

 

Nogarede: It is important that the EU looks at digitalisation more instrumentally, not as the ultimate goal. If you read the European Commission´s strategic documents, like the Digital Decade strategy or the AI Continent Action Plan, they assume that digitalisation is always great, that we should do ever more of it and make sure everyone adopts AI etc. And they copy, again, the U.S. That's a bad strategy. If instead you have a clearly articulated public goal, like more technological independence or a better educated population, you would not be plowing unlimited public resources into development and adoption of LLMs. You would have a much more nuanced understanding of what is needed.

 

The positions expressed in this interview do not necessarily reflect the positions of AK. 

 

Further information:

FES: Policy Study: Time to build a European digital ecosystem

FES Future of Work: Wage Against The Machine

ETUC: Artificial Intelligence for Workers, Not Just for Profit: Ensuring Quality Jobs in the Digital Age

AK EUROPA: Artificial intelligence. Opportunities and risks for workers

AK EUROPA: Digital fairness for consumers