Doubling down, not backing down: defending the EU’s digital sovereignty in the Trump era

Georg Riekeles , Max von Thun & Pencho Kuzev

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The European Union (EU) is founded on the rule of law, with independent, democratically elected institutions that ensure the strongest protection of fundamental rights and values. Any company – European or not – that wishes to operate in the EU market must comply with the legal framework of the Union and its member states. However, over the past months, the EU, various member states, and democratic leaders have faced relentless attacks from U.S. tech billionaires with direct influence in the White House. Europe has been accused by U.S. tech platforms of censorship, stifling innovation through overregulation, and unfairly targeting them with enforcement actions inaccurately described as “tariffs”. President Donald Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and other leading Republicans have themselves issued a series of threats, promising not to let Europe “take advantage of our companies” and even using NATO funding as a bargaining chip.

These accusations conveniently ignore that these same corporations have benefited massively from open access to the European market, the world’s largest digital service market outside the U.S., while being responsible for inflicting huge damage on Europe’s economy and democratic institutions. In 2021, the U.S. exported $283 billion in digitally-deliverable services to Europe, almost twice the amount going the other direction, and more than double U.S. exports to the entire Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, through their monopoly power and anti-competitive practices, U.S. gatekeepers have exploited the consumers and businesses dependent on them and stifled the emergence of European innovators. Most ominously, Europe’s societal and democratic fabric is reeling from the multiple shocks of systemic amplification of mis- and disinformation, calculated distortions of European electoral processes, and the general degrading of Europe’s public space through the promotion of conspiracies, hate speech or other illegal and extremist content.