If Europe Wants Digital Sovereignty, It Must Reinvent Who Owns Tech

Over the past year, digital sovereignty has taken centre stage in European policy debates. Democratic-by-design governance of tech companies, however, has received far less attention. It deserves much more.

The current conversation about sovereignty remains, for the most part, narrowly focused on economics. Most recently, Germany and France have included digital sovereignty in their joint economic agenda. When it comes to emerging technologies, however, the economic dimension is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

We can all agree that the technology sector has many problems. Since one of them is a clear democratic deficit, that’s our problem too. We citizens elect our representatives, yet ultimately, a few Big Tech corporations decide our collective destiny. Big Tech companies can choose to switch their services on and off for the general public and government institutions. They can determine whether, and how, they comply with laws enacted by democratically elected officials. They can even decide what information citizens do (or do not) have access to.

In the past few years, evidence showing that Big Tech companies pose a threat to democracy has only kept growing. The issues lie not only in specific practices such as weak data protection standards, amplification of disinformation, and election interference, but most importantly in their very structure. These corporations concentrate power not only in the market but also in how they govern themselves.

It is becoming ever clearer that this issue requires both attention and action. Ahead of the Franco-German Summit on European Digital Sovereignty, taking place this week in Berlin, the pressing question is what the European Union can (and should) do about it in the context of its digital sovereignty agenda.

All roads lead to digital sovereignty

Once hailed as a beacon of hope for democratic engagement and public participation, exemplified by movements such as the Arab Spring that emerged on social media, digital platforms have now ironically become the main suspects threatening democracy. Citizens are realizing that if they were able to mobilize, it was only because the owners of those platforms allowed it to happen.

While malicious actors exploited social media’s vulnerabilities to undermine democracy, the platforms’ own design choices and incentives often amplified these effects. Big Tech clearly did nothing to stop that. Instead, they invested massively into lobbying the EU to avoid being held accountable and circumvent compliance obligations to protect public discourse and the democratic fabric.

The EU nonetheless stood firm to protect its founding values through legislation. For example, transparency and due diligence rules for online platforms have been shaped by the Digital Services Act, personal data protection is ensured by the General Data Protection Regulation, and the Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising considers the specific case of political ads. The EU has also regulated AI with the Artificial Intelligence Act and anti-competitive behaviors of online platforms with the Digital Markets Act.

While the current framework still needs to show its teeth, the current geopolitical context, marked by the EU’s technological dependence on the United States and China, makes this an uphill battle. On top of that, these countries have become increasingly hostile and openly back their own tech giants to evade EU enforcement. Even within the EU, the push towards regulatory simplification, exemplified by the upcoming Digital Omnibus proposal, could end up watering down the existing framework. This poses an existential threat to the EU and its citizens and has accelerated discussions on the need for Europe’s digital sovereignty.

Digital sovereignty: time to deliver

Other than the aforementioned Franco-German agenda, initiatives such as EuroStack and EuroSky exemplify this effort, alongside national efforts such as the German Sovereign Tech Fund and The European Way. European companies themselves have been increasingly vocal on the need for the EU to play a role, with proposals such as GitHub’s Sovereign Tech Fund and initiatives such as Proton’s ‘AI built for people and not for profit’. Even the International Criminal Court has recently announced that it will move from Microsoft Office to Open Desk, a European open source software. This happens in parallel with broader research on what valid European models for social media and Artificial Intelligence could look like.

More importantly, EU citizens are increasingly sympathetic to the idea that Europe (or their own country) should have more control over its digital infrastructure and data flows, especially when it comes to the protection of fundamental rights, privacy and security. Of course, there are caveats regarding the EU’s capacity to deliver, and concerns about potential isolation from the rest of the world. Yet what matters most is that citizens are clearly dissatisfied with the status quo.

Given this momentum, the EU must seize the opportunity to boost its digital competitiveness. Digital sovereignty is needed not only for businesses, but first and foremost for citizens. Its achievement shouldn’t be attained through an isolationist or protectionist approach, but instead by creating a European ecosystem for tech innovation supported by funding and investment mechanisms that enable new platforms to be built and to thrive.

These platforms would be based on a new paradigm for the tech space, as they would not only be anchored in the founding values of the EU (Article 2 TUE) but would also actively function in a way that upholds and fosters them. In this sense, while addressing dependencies in the different layers of the tech stack, the EU should also address the democratic deficit and take the lead on tech innovation that is democratic-by-design, not only within the Union, but also globally.

If the EU does not take this role, no one else will.

Tech companies as public interest services

However, this will not happen unless an intentional and conscious effort is put into designing what would be the bedrock of European digital sovereignty.

As this is fundamentally a question of democratic governance, this conversation cannot happen only between the EU institutions and the private sector. Civil society and citizens must also be included and have real agency and ownership in the creation of European alternatives. Their voices must be heard not only to bridge the democratic deficit but also to make these European alternatives to Big Tech a success. Otherwise, the risk is that we simply end up with the same problems, but this time bearing the EU flag.

As noted earlier, the democratic deficit stems from a concentration of power, not only because a few companies dominate the market, but also due to the internal structures of these corporations. Most leading tech companies operate under highly centralized, top-down governance models where one or very few individuals own and control the entire organization, making decisions without checks and balances, including the ability to sell the company and abandon its original mission, as seen in the case of Twitter / X.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. More importantly, it shouldn’t be that way.

These companies have become services of public interest: they control democratic discourse online and provide essential infrastructure upon which democratic institutions and all other societal actors depend. The situation has become so severe that we would go as far as arguing that they should be treated as essential public infrastructure, with a clearly defined mission that cannot be altered at will, and with ownership structures that do not concentrate power in a single individual.

The EU is enabling a tech paradigm shift

For these reasons, it is essential that the EU, in its quest for digital sovereignty, explores alternative ownership models for tech companies and clearly defines their purpose and mission. To this end, inspiration could be drawn from existing examples such as Signal, Proton, Bluesky and Wikipedia, which are already staples in the digital pantry of European citizens.

These models should explicitly embed the founding values of the EU, making them democratic-by-design, so that every process upholds democratic principles. This would form part of the broader effort to create an EU digital ecosystem, without adding new bureaucratic burdens, as these principles would be built into the very structure of the new European digital alternatives.

More details on the most suitable alternative governance models for tech companies could be introduced as new internal market rules on corporate governance as part of the 28th Regime for Innovative Companies and the European Innovation Act, as outlined in the European Commission’s Work Programme for 2026. The European Commission should undertake a comprehensive assessment to determine which governance models are best suited to ensure democratic decision-making within technology companies. This review should consider a range of structures - from public-private partnerships to for-profit companies owned by non-profit foundations - and actively involve experts not only from the business community but also from civil society.

In parallel, the Commission should identify specific technology sectors that ought to be regarded as essential infrastructure (e.g., cloud, AI, electronic communication, social media, etc.) and therefore operate under a mission oriented toward the common good rather than the maximization of shareholder profit. Relevant lessons could be drawn from existing models in other sectors, such as public broadcasting, telecommunications, and energy.

Furthermore, to encourage new EU tech companies to adopt such alternative models, investments in tech should be tied to said ownership structures. This is crucial as the EU discusses its next multi-year budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). Investments in technological innovation should be directed only toward companies with a clearly defined mission that serves the common good and cannot be easily altered. Priority should also be given to organizations with mixed ownership models, ensuring that no single individual holds complete control over the enterprise.

After all, Europe doesn’t need to replicate Big Tech. It needs to build something better.