Policy Brief: A progressive roadmap for expanding European digital sovereignty

In a world dominated by global tech giants, Europe must ensure that digital technologies serve the public good, not just corporate interests. Decisions about AI, online platforms, and other digital infrastructure have profound social, economic and political consequences. In this policy brief, Cecilia Rikap outlines a progressive roadmap for strengthening Europe's digital sovereignty: the democratic control, exerted by states and their people, of essential technologies for self-government and their lives. It sets out why an alternative digital ecosystem is necessary, achievable, and best led by the public sector.

Time for a paradigm shift

The brief identifies four preconditions for expanding digital sovereignty:

• a public-led digital stack
• governance, competition and power
• empowering people and communities
• digital sovereignty as a catalyst for a just transition

Rikap argues that Europe must adopt a new paradigm, in which search engines, online marketplaces and AI foundation models are considered digital public utilities. A public-led stack, governed by an autonomous democratic body, can bring technology development under democratic control while prioritising communities and the planet. Promoting competition is important, but not enough to prevent natural monopolisation across certain layers of the stack.

Global best practices

Additionally, international cooperation is key. Collective solutions are cheaper, likelier to succeed, and more environmentally friendly. Rikap provides a number of best practices from around the world: from Uruguay's main telecommunication company, to the use of AI in the UK's Competition and Markets Authority to a Chilean mapping tool for data centres.