The Summit on European Digital Sovereignty took place on the 18th of November in Berlin, gathering more than 900 policymakers, industry leaders, investors, researchers, and representatives of the civil society from the 27 EU Member States and the European Institutions.
The Summit was the occasion to present concrete measures aimed at fostering European innovative solutions and infrastructures and strengthening our resilience, while reducing our technological dependencies and protecting our strategic assets. France and Germany targeted seven strategic and promising areas to unlock EU’s competitiveness and build EU’s digital sovereignty
- Simplification : France and Germany reaffirm their wish to shape a simple, innovation-friendly and competitive EU regulatory framework. In particular, both sides call for a 12-month postponement of the AI Act dispositions on high-risk AI systems and urges the European Commission to integrate targeted simplification of the GDPR within the Digital omnibus.
- Fairer Digital Markets : Fair, contestable and competitive regulatory conditions remain a prerequisite to enable the development of an European offer on strategic digital markets. France and Germany welcome the decision of the European Commission to launch a market investigation into the qualitative designation of cloud hyperscalers.
- Data Sovereignty : Safeguarding the most sensitive data and control of digital technology is indispensable to foster economic stability and growth as well as innovation in Europe. Together, France and Germany call on the European Commission to define highest protection standards for the most sensitive data, including adequate safeguards to protect data from cybersecurity risks, notably the effects of non-EU extraterritorial legislation, and mandatory usage of privacy-enhancing technologies, in close alignment with the European cybersecurity framework.
- Digital commons : France and Germany support the development of digital commons by founding the Digital Commons-EDIC (European digital infrastructure consortium), alongside the Netherlands and Italy.
- Digital Public Infrastructure and Open Source tools for public administration : France and Germany highly support the development of the EUDI Wallet, providing a safe, reliable, and private means of digital identification for European citizens, cornerstone of Europe’s digital sovereignty. France and Germany also commit to broaden the use of open source tools in their administrations, building e.g. on the success of the jointly developed LaSuite/OpenDesk products.
- Digital Sovereignty Task Force France and Germany are launching a joint taskforce on European digital sovereignty. This taskforce will work on developing a common definition of a European digital service. The group will also develop sovereignty indicators, focusing on key sectors such as cloud services, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. It will aim to develop concrete measures to promote the definition through relevant European policy instruments such as sectoral regulationstate aid, and the European Competitiveness Fund. The results of this work will be presented at the Franco-German Council of Ministers in 2026.
- European Frontier AI : Germany and France wish to foster breakthrough innovation in frontier AI. Together we want to create a world leading environment for public private development of frontier AI in Europe.
The summit served as an important platform to coordinate and leverage private sector investments. France and Germany welcome the commitment to digital sovereignty shown by European tech leaders.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz :
“The summit marks an important milestone on the path towards a more sovereign, secure and competitive digital Europe. I would like to thank France for working with us toward this goal. For Europe, digital sovereignty means the ability to shape technology across the entire value chain in line with European interests and needs. We seek competition on equal terms. This does not exclude anyone. As a community of states, we must align our legal frameworks, procurement and investment procedures accordingly. I would also like to thank the European tech leaders who have joined forces with us today and announced a broad range of project between French and German companies. I am more than happy that our companies have pledged more than 12 billion euro investments in key technologies. This is an important signal : Europe is rising to the challenge.”
French President Emmanuel Macron :
“The Digital Sovereignty Summit sends a clear signal : Europe has what it takes to lead the digital age. Alongside Germany and following the AI Action Summit held in Paris earlier this year, this summit marks tangible progress. Europe is stepping up to accelerate the development of European innovation, to uphold strong data protection, and to call for fair market conditions. This summit also symbolizes an historic convergence of our national champions in AI and digital technologies, proving that collaboration across borders is not just an aspiration, but a strategic imperative. Private and public actors now need to accelerate together to develop and fully adopt European technologies”.
