eco – Association of the Internet Industry evaluates the Franco-German sovereignty criteria, presented today at Vivatech, as an important and fundamentally sound impetus for the European debate on the cloud, AI and digital infrastructures. It is encouraging that digital sovereignty is explicitly not understood as isolation, but rather as Europe’s capacity to act autonomously whilst at the same time collaborating with trustworthy international partners and remaining globally connected.
Digital sovereignty must not be defined by blanket rules on country of origin or new barriers to market access. What matters is whether providers meet specific requirements relating to security, data protection and transparency, and whether customers have genuine options to switch providers.
Germany and France are therefore setting an important benchmark. It is now crucial to closely align this initiative with the European Commission’s Tech Sovereignty Package and the planned Cloud and AI Development Act. Europe does not need fragmented national approaches; it needs common criteria that strengthen the Digital Single Market.
Anyone wishing to strengthen sovereignty in the areas of cloud computing and AI must also create the necessary infrastructural conditions. These include sufficient data centre capacity, faster approval processes, competitive energy prices and investment security. Sovereignty is not achieved through isolation, but through capability, resilience, competition and trust.
