Digital Sovereignty in Europe Rests on Antitrust Battles Against US Tech

Mark Scott is a contributing editor at Tech Policy Press.

The European Union has a new weapon in its bid for digital sovereignty: antitrust enforcement.

The 27-country bloc is seeking to gain greater control over many of its digital services, including those related to artificial intelligence, cloud computing and social media, that are currently dominated by American tech giants.

Amid a generational breakdown in relations between Washington and Brussels, EU leaders now view these dependencies — similar to the bloc’s reliance on American military hardware and support — as a potential weak point in the bloc’s position on the global stage.

A growing wariness of Silicon Valley, much of which has leant into current United States foreign policy that is increasingly antagonistic toward long-time allies, has been compounded by Europe’s eagerness to support local firms to take advantage of the AI revolution and jumpstart the bloc’s sluggish economy.

This more muscular approach to digital sovereignty has run headlong into the reality that the likes of Google, Meta and Apple still dominate much of the online economy.

For EU officials, that has blunted efforts by European competitors to offer alternatives which would allow the Continent to wean itself off its current reliance on American technology.

This dependence is most acute in next-generation AI systems, currently dominated by the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. These large language models are expected to drive significant economic growth over the next decade. France’s Mistral is the only European firm to be considered alongside these US firms, though the Paris-based company, itself, has long-standing ties with Microsoft.

“We need to pay attention to this concentration of power,” Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s competition czar, told CNN ahead of a trip to the US, where she met the chief executives of the likes of Alphabet, Amazon and Meta on March 24. Alongside her meetings in Silicon Valley, where the conversations often centered around artificial intelligence, the Spanish politician also met with Gavin Newsom, the Californian governor

“It’s not even about fines,” she added, although Brussels has levied sizable financial penalties against Apple, Google and Meta over the last 12 months. A separate fine against Google, for potential abuses in the online search market, is due imminently. “It’s about learning how to ensure this interoperability and a level playing field to prevent abuses.”

In response, the companies have denied they abused their dominant positions to hobble smaller European firms. Google, Apple and Meta are all separately appealing their fines under the EU’s Digital Markets Act. US president Donald Trump has also equated Europe’s competition enforcement to an illegal trade barrier. He has threatened retaliation for the perceived targeting of some of the US’ largest companies.

“Digital taxes, digital services legislation, and digital markets regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology,” he wrote on Truth Social last year.

Yet as EU leaders — led by French president Emmanuel Macron — flex their digital sovereignty muscles, the bloc’s updated antitrust rulebook has garnered greater attention as a possible means of reducing Silicon Valley’s dominance and opening up space for “Made in Europe” alternatives.

Billions of euros of European public funds have been earmarked to support local tech efforts. Proposed structural changes within the bloc are also expected to allow Continent-wide startups to be set up. But policymakers now realize that such efforts have yet to dent Silicon Valley’s preeminence.

Money and policy reform — on their own — have not successfully rebalanced Europe’s relationship with American Big Tech firms.

Faced with this stark reality, as well as a growing geopolitical eagerness to reduce dependencies on a long-time ally whose motives are now openly questioned, European officials are turning to antitrust enforcement to reshape the Continent’s relationship with US tech.

Under the Digital Markets Act, certain companies are designated as so-called gatekeepers. This moniker requires these dominant firms to grant greater access to smaller rivals to their online platforms in the name of competition. They are also outlawed from expanding into specific new markets where these firms’ existing economies of scale may outmuscle other firms.

Currently, five out of the seven gatekeepers, under the EU’s rules, are American. Only China-linked ByteDance and Dutch-headquartered Booking make the list, which also does not include AI giants like OpenAI nor cloud computing services like Amazon’s AWS.

The Digital Markets Act is currently under review, and civil organizations and European firms have called for the rules to be expected to the likes of dominant US cloud computing services and American large language models, based on a review of submissions to the European Commission’s consultation about the competition rules.

“Some respondents noted persistent challenges in interoperability, switching, and data portability when it comes to cloud services,” according to the European Commission.

As Europe refines its case for digital sovereignty — a concept that, for many EU capitals, is shifting toward a “Buy European” strategy — the use of the bloc’s powerful antitrust rules is fast becoming a central vehicle for promoting the Continent’s geopolitical ambitions. It is borne out of a frustration that, despite years of public investment in local startups, Europe still significantly underperforms the likes of the US and China in the creation of globe-spanning tech firms.

For policymakers across the bloc, that is a structural challenge that only intensive antitrust enforcement can now overcome — even if, for now, many Europeans remain skeptical whether Europe’s digital sovereignty ambitions can be made a reality.