EU's Sovereignty Package targets US, Chinese tech dominance with new laws

The European Commission unveiled its long-awaited European Technological Sovereignty Package last week, a bundle of draft laws and strategies aimed at aggressively cutting the continent’s overwhelming reliance on American and Chinese tech giants. Driven by deep-seated fears that foreign dependencies could be weaponized during geopolitical crises, the blueprint marks a dramatic, protective shift in how Europe intends to secure its digital future. The master plan tackles vulnerabilities across four areas: Chips Act 2.0 upgrades the original 2023 act by fast-tracking manufacturing permits to one year, boosting supply-chain funding, and prioritizing an advanced EU semiconductor foundry for AI infrastructure; the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) aims to triple European data center capacity in five to seven years with a tiered sovereignty assessment system for public entities; the Open Source Strategy elevates community software to critical national infrastructure with long-term funding for European alternatives in cybersecurity, AI, and cloud routing; and the Energy Digitalisation Roadmap integrates data centers with clean energy grids to prevent power crashes.

Foreign-owned platforms host over 80% of Europe’s essential digital services, and the EU spends €264 billion annually on foreign IT products—described as severe vendor lock-in. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, "We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure." Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen explicitly said, "We want to be sure nobody has a kill switch," noting that US tech giants would struggle to meet CADA's highest sovereignty tiers due to conflicts with the US Cloud Act. The package has drawn fierce bipartisan pushback from European lawmakers and industry lobbyists, who argue the Commission watered down its proposals and lost its nerve.