Elise Moreau
A Café, a Croissant, and the Illusion of Control
It’s a grey Parisian morning. A familiar voice on the radio heralds the dawn of a new “digital emancipation decade.” I sip the last of my café crème, scrolling through my smartphone — designed in California, assembled in Asia, hosted on an American cloud.
If this is sovereignty, then it comes with a rather foreign accent.
Europe speaks of autonomy, yet rents the very infrastructure upon which its economy, politics, and culture now rest. The question we must confront is simple, yet existential:
Can Europe truly own its digital destiny, or is it simply regulating someone else’s code?
The Regulatory Goldmine… or Paper Fortress?
Brussels has built a regulatory cathedral: the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, Data Act, Chips Act, and now the Digital Fairness Act.
Collectively, these laws aim to tame monopolies, protect users, and inject transparency into algorithmic decisions. It is admirable. It is necessary. But is it sufficient?
The paradox is glaring.
While the EU regulates, its member states continue to court investment from the very tech giants they claim to restrain. Google, Amazon, Meta — they remain not only service providers, but economic partners, tax negotiators, and sometimes even de facto public utilities.
Europe writes the laws. Big Tech writes the software.
And for now, it is the latter who codes the future.
The Cloud: European Locks, Foreign Keys
France has led the charge with a law mandating that sensitive data be stored within “trusted clouds” located under European jurisdiction.
On paper: sovereignty.
In practice: the same familiar names, cloaked in European subsidiaries, power many of the infrastructure contracts.
The EU’s answer? Gaia-X — a federated cloud initiative meant to reclaim digital autonomy.
Years in, it remains more promise than platform.
When sovereignty is subcontracted, it becomes branding, not independence.
Chips, Silos, and Silicon Dependencies
The EU Chips Act, promising €43 billion in investment, is meant to reindustrialize semiconductor production on the continent.
But even here, Europe depends on non-European machinery, patents, and know-how.
A factory takes years to build, and decades to master. Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions escalate, and innovation cycles shrink.
We find ourselves in a geopolitical paradox: Europe is defending its laws with judicial muscle, but still lacks industrial arms to enforce that vision.
To regulate what you cannot produce is to limit the speed on a car you don’t own.
Two Europes: Legislator or Manufacturer?
Europe stands at a crossroads:
- The Europe of the Official Gazette: Champion of ethical tech, global standard-setter.
Yet risks becoming a sophisticated consumer with no production base. - The Europe of Digital Manufacturing: Investor in deep tech, builder of ecosystems, keeper of its own data and infrastructure.
Riskier. Slower. But potentially transformative.
The ideal is not one over the other. It is both — a regulatory shield and an industrial sword. Without this dual approach, “digital sovereignty” will remain a ceremonial phrase rather than a strategic position.
Gaullist Dilemma in a 5G Era
General de Gaulle once warned against a Europe of merchants rather than a Europe of nations.
Today, the threat is not tariffs, but cognitive outsourcing — the slow erosion of strategic control over knowledge, innovation, and infrastructure.
Europe’s response must go beyond another layer of legislation or a polished PDF on digital rights. It requires a continental project that aligns parliaments, enterprises, and citizens around a shared vision:
That the future should not be coded abroad, then downloaded at home.
As Voltaire might say today, “To write is to resist.”
And in 2025, to code is to defend.
Élise Moreau, French investigative journalist and international correspondent at Phoenix24. Specialist in European affairs, gender equity & digital democracy.