Our services will enable businesses as commercial users of digital platforms to exercise their data access rights under Art. 6(10) of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 (Digital Markets Act) and make the obtained data available to authorised third parties.Commercial users can submit a formal data access request through our service and designate third parties authorised to receive their data. The request is transmitted to the respective gatekeeper.

Simplify the Rulebook The AI Act, GDPR, the Data Act, NIS2 - each with its own obligations and timelines - pile cumulative burden on the startups Europe most needs. The Digital Omnibus, tabled in late 2025, is a genuine opportunity to consolidate enforcement and rationalise the data framework. It should be fast-tracked and adopted by mid-2026.

Supercharge EU-Inc. Europe's legal architecture was built for another era. EU-Inc is a step forward - one corporate structure recognised across the bloc - but it must seed something far more ambitious: a full operating framework covering stock options, capital markets, and employment law. The goal is borderless company building.

Where Europe Can Win Europe has lost the generative AI race - only Mistral has produced notable foundation models. Pretending otherwise is not a strategy. But losing one race does not mean losing the war. Trust as a Moat US labs are going closed-source; China has embraced open-source for global reach. Europe's path is a third way: trusted, open-source AI built to European values - something like what "Made in Germany" once meant for manufactured goods. Own the Distribution The most urgent threat to European AI sovereignty is not the models Europeans use - it is the apps (and soon agents) that control distribution. In virtually every vertical, dominant platforms are American or Chinese. A continent that relies on foreign apps for its digital life has surrendered its AI future to the companies that own those apps. Vertical AI Over 75% of European AI investment already targets specialist applications. In AI for energy, Europe leads the world with 50% of global VC in that segment. Health, energy, defence, and financial services are precisely where European expertise creates durable advantage. The Next Wave: World Models Systems that understand the physical world - enabling robotics, autonomous systems, manufacturing and logistics - represent a frontier where no one has yet established dominance. Europe is at parity with the US in the talent required. This is where Europe must concentrate its ambition, before this window closes as the GenAI window did.

6. Hosting and service infrastructureYour Eurosky PDS account and associated identity data are hosted exclusively on cloud infrastructure located within the European Union. The PDS itself will not be hosted outside the EU.

I’ll be honest: I feel conflicted about the framing of this as a European project.

Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union.

1.   The Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples. 2.   The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime. 3.   The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance. It shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child. It shall promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States. It shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe's cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced.

The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.’.

20 years ago, Europe had a thriving generation of social platforms and the entrepreneurs, designers, and programmers building them. A capability and an industry that have been lost.

Funding for this feature was secured through the Sovereign Tech Fund

Ploum made a related point: Europe doesn’t need a European Google. The European contribution to software has been infrastructure that serves as collective commons: the web, Linux, Git, VLC, OpenStreetMap.

The security and metadata tooling built on top of these registries tends to be US-based regardless of where the registry itself is hosted. A European company running Forgejo for code hosting still typically uses US services for dependency updates, vulnerability scanning, license compliance, and SBOM generation. Self-hosting the forge doesn’t change the intelligence layer.

“The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is a step in the right direction. It signals that they acknowledge the problem.”

Google and Thales, for instance, or Microsoft and Bleu, a joint venture between Orange and Capgemini. This involves the hyperscaler providing access to its technology, while the two companies remain independent. Buest said the arrangement provides a higher level of “operational sovereignty” compared to AWS European Sovereign Cloud, though it still involves some level of technological dependence on the hyperscaler.

increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty – sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.This room knows this is classic risk management. Risk management comes at a price, but that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty can also be shared.

A country that can't feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself, has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.But let's be clear eyed about where this leads.A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable. And there is another truth. If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.

The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied – the WTO, the UN, the COP – the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving are under threat. And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy, in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

The study also considers future scenarios. If 15% of this spending were retained within the European economy by 2035, around 500,000 direct, indirect, and induced jobs would be created, benefiting the European economy.

80% of total spending on cloud software and services for business use in Europe went to US companies, representing a volume of €265 billion.

This spending, relating exclusively to cloud software and services for business use, represents approximately 2 million direct, indirect, and induced jobs in the US.

Congress just killed a military "right to repair" law. So now, US soldiers stationed abroad will have to continue the Pentagon's proud tradition of shipping materiel from generators to jeeps back to America to be fixed by their manufacturers

also the national security hawks who are 100% justified in their extreme concern about their country's reliance on American platforms that have been shown to be totally unreliable.

This is exactly the kind of infrastructural risk that we were warned of if we let Chinese companies like Huawei supply our critical telecoms equipment. Virtually every government ministry, every major corporation, every small business and every household in the world have locked themselves into a US-based, cloud-based service.

The alternative was tariffs. Well, I don't know if you've heard, but we've got tariffs now!

For Europe, the question is no longer whether it should pursue digital sovereignty, but whether it has the collective will to stop talking, start building, and, most importantly, distinguish real autonomy from clever marketing.

For these individual successes to scale into a continent-wide shift, however, structural barriers must be addressed. The path to digital sovereignty is not a single, grand gesture but a series of deliberate, often difficult, choices. The examples from Austria, France, and the ICC show that the journey begins with a single, courageous step, often prompted by the mundane reality of a data protection assessment.

These cases illustrate that while a complete break from US hyperscalers may seem unrealistic, as Forrester predicts, targeted migrations for specific, high-risk applications are not only possible but are actively being pursued. They represent a grassroots movement, driven by legal obligations and a growing desire for autonomy.

exposing a critical flaw in Europe's strategy that cannot be solved by procurement alone.

American hyperscalers have recognized the market demand for sovereignty and now aggressively market 'sovereign cloud' solutions, typically by placing datacenters on European soil or partnering with local operators. Critics call this ‘sovereignty washing’. Caffarra warns that this does not resolve the fundamental problem. "A company subject to the extraterritorial laws of the United States cannot be considered sovereign for Europe," she says. "That simply doesn't work." Because, as long as the parent company is American, it remains subject to the CLOUD Act.

distinguishing real alternatives from false promises has become increasingly difficult.

For Caffarra, this trend is dangerously reminiscent of Gaia-X, a previous flagship initiative for a federated European cloud. "The intention behind Gaia-X was good," she says. "The problem was that American companies lobbied to be included. Once Microsoft, Google, and AWS were inside Gaia-X, the initiative lost its purpose.". In her opinion: "That is why it failed."

from talking to building, from regulating to investing, and from passivity to action. Europe cannot rely on Brussels to deliver this transformation. The market must build it, but governments must create the conditions, through procurement preferences and initial funding, that make it viable.

The goal, she emphasizes, is not autarky or protectionism, but resilience. Europe does not need to achieve complete independence from American technology, but it does need to reclaim a meaningful share of its own market. "Can we please have 30 to 40 percent for ourselves?"

For Cristina Caffarra, founder of the Eurostack Foundation and a competition economist, Europe's predicament is both alarming and self-inflicted. She estimates that 90 percent of Europe's digital infrastructure (cloud, compute, and software) is now controlled by non-European, predominantly American, companies.

Alsof er geen alternatieven zijn en men werkelijk niet zonder kan: het platform wordt volledig gedomineerd door extreemrechts en heeft een marktaandeel van slechts 4 procent in Europa.

k zei tegen hen: vraag al je bedrijven om een kopie van hun data op een Europese cloud te bewaren, voor de zekerheid. Dat is minimale beveiliging. Je kunt nog steeds met AWS werken als je wilt, maar zorg dat je een kopie hebt onder Europese jurisdictie.’

Mijn Bureau, de Franse variant LaSuite en het Duitse openDesk.

AI-top in Parijs ging en daar publiekelijk zei dat als wij Amerikaanse bedrijven beboeten, zij de NAVO zullen verlaten

Ook andere landen hebben inmiddels hun samenwerking met de Verenigde Staten ingeperkt, uit zorg dat gedeelde informatie wordt gebruikt voor militaire acties die mogelijk botsen met internationaal recht en mensenrechten. Canada en het Verenigd Koninkrijk hebben de regels voor informatie-uitwisseling aangescherpt, terwijl Frankrijk openlijk afstand heeft genomen van Amerikaanse militaire drugsoperaties buiten een internationaal en juridisch kader. Binnen de Europese Unie is afgesproken dat lidstaten geen gegevens delen die kunnen bijdragen aan dodelijke acties op zee.

Chinese producers are close to being monopolists not only in rare earths, but also electronics products, batteries, and many types of active pharmaceutical ingredients

The Communist Party lives for whole-of-society efforts.

Last month was Trump’s 28-point Russia-Ukraine war peace proposal, presented without consultation with Ukraine. Now, the U.S. National Security Strategy claims that Europe is in “economic decline” and experiencing “civilizational erasure,” and it openly endorses parties hostile to the European Union.

But while many thought they had cracked the code for managing Trump, the U.S. attacks on Europe have only multiplied over time

they converge into a strategy built to implement Trump administration’s geoeconomic ambitions: complete regulatory freedom for Silicon Valley tech companies in Europe and a commercial reset with Russia at the expense of Ukrainian and European sovereignty.

De nieuwe Europese energie-efficiëntierichtlijn, de EED, moest dat veranderen. De Europese richtlijn dwingt bedrijven transparant te zijn over hun energieverbruik en meer werk te maken van energiebesparing. Alle grote bedrijven in Europa, inclusief datacenters, moeten daarom vanaf 2024 jaarlijks bij hun eigen overheid hun energie- en waterverbruik opgeven. In Nederland is dat bij de Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland, de RVO.

NVIDIA lost ~$593bn in market cap as investors panicked that AI maybe wasn’t an American monopoly after all.

Hij raakt teleurgesteld over hoe de Europese bedrijven zich opstellen, vooral cloudaanbieders als Herztner, Leaseweb (Nederlands), OVH en Ionos. „Je zou verwachten dat die voorop zouden lopen in de strijd. Maar in plaats daarvan zeggen ze ‘Het ligt niet aan ons dat mensen onze spullen niet kopen’.”

In februari zegt Vance tijdens een speech op de jaarlijkse veiligheidsconferentie in München onder meer dat Europa zichzelf van binnenuit uitholt. De democratie in de EU zou niet meer functioneren, wat onder meer zou komen door de Europese regels voor de digitale wereld – die in de praktijk vooral de grote Amerikaanse sociale mediabedrijven als Meta en X treffen.

* "Digital platforms are used for hybrid campaigns."* "EU can't compete with US tech ON THEIR TERMS."* "Post-reality US is what happens when tech is unregulated."* "Ireland is a Trojan Horse for Big Tech."* "The Digital Omnibus is sabotage."

Indien de Algemene Rijksvoorwaarden bij IT-overeenkomsten 2022 (ARBIT-2022)6 van toepassing verklaard is op de overeenkomst is er een ontbindingsgrond als er sprake is van een ingrijpende wijziging in de zeggenschap (wat het geval kan zijn bij fusies en overnames) met betrekking tot de onderneming van de wederpartij/opdrachtnemer. Door de landsadvocaat wordt momenteel onderzocht in hoeverre dit het geval is. Indien door de overname de nakoming van de verwerkersovereenkomst en de naleving van de AVG wordt bemoeilijkt of zelfs onmogelijk wordt, kan dit een grond vormen om de dienstverleningsovereenkomst respectievelijk de verwerkersovereenkomst te ontbinden. Dit laat overigens onverlet de mogelijkheid om in een concreet geval een overeenkomst op basis van de Algemene Rijksvoorwaarden op te kunnen zeggen.

Het versterken van digitale autonomie vergt daarom een Europese aanpak.

The wild card remains a behind-the-scenes "Digital Bretton Woods"—standardized frameworks for transparency, due process, and appeals that let both sides claim victory while lowering uncertainty.

Expect geo-fenced product design: "EU mode" platforms with different algorithmic defaults, transparency flows, and researcher access versus "US mode."

U.S. willingness to treat compliance as hostile action changes the calculation.

That increases risk premium on firms whose EU revenues depend on algorithmic distribution: social platforms, digital advertising, app stores, marketplace ranking.

The irony both sides miss: this conflict could entrench the very platforms Trump claims to defend and Europe claims to regulate. Compliance burden becomes incumbent moat.

The DSA doesn't mandate content removal based on viewpoint; it requires transparency in algorithmic curation, researcher access to platform data, and accountability for enforcement decisions. What the Trump administration calls "censorship," Europe frames as democratic governance of the digital public square—the same principle that makes "what is illegal offline illegal online."

a sharper conflict emerges: this is about who owns the distribution layer of democracy—who sets the rules for how speech gets amplified, throttled, demonetized, and made discoverable on platforms where most political discourse now occurs.

The EU had just levied a €120 million fine on X for DSA violations—the first major enforcement action under rules requiring platforms to moderate illegal content

It’s important to recognise that friction – the mess, the slowness, the need for constant negotiation – is not a flaw in native paths, it’s a virtue. It’s how trust, mutuality, and accountability are sustained over time.

We zoeken daarom onderzoeksprojecten waarin bestaande (Europese, dan wel Nederlandse) alternatieven getest en onderzocht worden en/of doorontwikkeld in een specifieke context.

On 24 November 2023, the EU and Canada launched a Digital Partnership to reinforce cooperation on digital issues. The partnership reflects a shared vision for a positive and human-centric digital economy and society. The EU and Canada agreed to work together in crucial areas such as AI, secure international connectivity, cyber security, online platforms, digital identity and digital skills. This Digital Partnership and its importance were highlighted in the New EU-Canada Strategic Partnership of the Future, adopted at the Canada-EU Summit on 23 June 2025.

EU and Canada are committed to working together on secure international connectivity, for example in 5G and subsea cables, and have agreed to explore new cable routes to strengthen global network resilience, including in the Arctic region. The EU and Canada will deepen the collaboration in priority topics such as quantum technologies, semiconductors, and high-performance computing. They also reaffirmed their commitment to resilient semiconductor supply chains and secure and sovereign cloud infrastructure and data centres.

explore cooperation on enhancing information integrity online, including on the challenges posed by generative AI and the risks stemming from foreign information manipulation and interference.

Both partners plan to establish a forum to facilitate joint testing of digital credential technologies, drive pilot projects, and share information. They will develop joint use cases and pilot projects towards interoperability of digital identity wallets and digital credentials and trust services.

the cooperation on digital credentials and trust services, including on technical interoperability and solutions based on digital identity wallets, the EU and Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Digital Credentials and Trust Services.

the partners will share  best practices to accelerate AI adoption in strategic sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, energy, culture, science and public services, and support SMEs. They committed to work together on large AI infrastructures and support industry and academia's access to AI compute capacity. They will also explore scientific cooperation on fundamental AI research, and the development of advanced AI models for the public good, including in areas such as extreme weather monitoring and climate change. In addition, the EU and Canada will set up a structured dialogue on data spaces, of particular relevance to the development of large AI models.

Memorandum of Understanding on Artificial Intelligence.

the first Digital Partnership Council held today in Montreal, Canada

link.europa.eu/HndTw4

Companies will not be obliged to use the European Business Wallets. The Regulation places obligations solely on public sector bodies to accept its core functions, while companies remain free to decide whether to adopt the wallets for their commercial operations or interactions with public authorities

In parallel, the Commission will work closely with Member States and the private sector to define the technical standards and requirements for European Business Wallets through ongoing efforts under the European Digital Identity Framework and in large-scale pilot projects funded under the Digital Europe Programme such as the WeBuild consortium.

It is estimated that simplification efforts will save up to €5 billion in administrative costs between now and 2029. Moreover, the European Business Wallets should unlock at least EUR 160 billion in savings for businesses each year.

The technical architecture and features for the European Business Wallets will build on the one for the EU Digital Identity Wallets.

Designed to be accessible for businesses of all sizes, including SMEs and microenterprises, as well as public administrations

The European Business Wallets are one of the key deliverables of the Digital Package. The Commission proposes a regulation to establish those Wallets as a harmonised digital solution to ease the administrative burden and to enable companies and public sector bodies to identify, to authenticate and to exchange data in a secure and user-friendly way, with full legal effect across the European Union.

AI-naar-FPGA

How the energy part of the deal will work is a particular mystery. Last year, the total imports of energy by the EU stood at EUR375bn so for the EU to buy USD250bn of US energy products per year for the next three years would require a massive re-allocation of European imports