Merz, Macron vow to fight for digital ‘sovereignty’

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed on Tuesday to help Europe catch up in the artificial intelligence race and unshackle the continent from a heavy reliance on US tech titans.

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(Agence France Presse)

Speaking at a Berlin summit attended by regional tech firms, the leaders of Europe's biggest economies also pledged to ease rules for the digital sector that many firms complain are holding them back. “Europe doesn’t want to be the client of the big entrepreneurs or the big solutions being provided either from the US or from China, we clearly want to design our own solutions,” Macron said, adding that this stance represented “a refusal of being a vassal”.

Merz called for Europe to “join forces and forge its own digital path — and this path must lead to digital sovereignty”. “Digital sovereignty has costs, but the costs of digital dependence are even higher,” said the chancellor. Merz said companies were pledging [2 billion euros (513.9 billion) in investments for Europe's digital future at the summit, without providing further details.

Europe is responding to calls to blaze its own digital path as concerns escalate about US tech dominance at a time of increasingly uneasy ties with Washington under the “America First” administration of Donald Trump.