Germany, France push for tech independence from the US

The German and French governments have officially announced their support for the proposed “Eurostack” initiative on April 9.

The Eurostack initiative aims to reduce the continent’s over-reliance on US technologies by creating a sovereign European technology infrastructure covering the entire value chain, from semiconductors and cloud services to platforms, social media, and artificial intelligence (AI).

The German CDU-SPD coalition’s document, published on April 9, included a statement supporting the Eurostack initiative.

In an official response to Germany’s support for the Eurostack initiative, the office of French Minister for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs Clara Chappaz told Euractiv, “Yes, we support the development of European solutions,” adding that the French and German administrations are in contact to create a common roadmap.

The new German coalition’s stance was praised in a post published on LinkedIn on Wednesday by Cristina Caffarra, an influential antitrust expert who pioneered the Eurostack project.

However, the real challenges are now emerging. A much-debated and non-binding report on EU technology sovereignty in the European Parliament reveals deep divisions between parties and countries.

Indeed, France and Germany have very different approaches to high-speed networks (fiber and 5G), a key element of Eurostack, as highlighted in the Commission’s recent report.

France and Germany also differ greatly when it comes to energy components, a key element for powering data centers, and the two countries disagree on whether nuclear energy is a renewable energy source.

The EU’s two economic powerhouses have been struggling for years over a number of technology issues, including defining what constitutes a secure cloud.

The Eurostack initiative will also require a genuine European industrial policy that has never existed at the EU level.

While it may be easy to agree on a name, the “Eurostack” concept is still very vague. Some initiatives propose investments reaching hundreds of billions of euros, which appear to be public funds, while others, such as Caffarra’s initiative, prioritize private sector solutions and advocate the French view on cloud security.

The EU has so far been reluctant to take sides, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also gave only hesitant support to the Eurostack initiative in a letter to German Members of Parliament on Wednesday.