Why Europe Should Double Down On Its Global Tech Ties

Mark Scott is a contributing editor at Tech Policy Press.

The European Union has a message to the world: let’s work together on tech.

In proposals published on June 5, the executive branch of the 27-country bloc doubled down on international partnerships on everything from artificial intelligence research to commitments for keeping data flowing worldwide.

The announcement — dubbed the International Digital Strategy for the EU — comes as Brussels and other EU member country capitals revamp their internal approach to technology to jumpstart sluggish domestic economies still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

That includes forking out billions of euros in taxpayers’ money for Continent-wide digital infrastructure and committing to reducing regulatory red tape, which some believe hampers Europe’s ability to keep pace with the United States and China. It also includes a growing wariness to pass new digital rules after the bloc spent the last five years agreeing to legislation to oversee social media, dominant tech companies and AI.

In its globe-spanning commitments, Brussels wants to reinforce existing relationships with the likes of India, South Korea and Japan, including via ongoing digital partnerships in which officials from both sides meet regularly to build bridges around data governance, quantum computing and semiconductors.

Amid mounting global tensions around digital policymaking, the EU is eager to lay out its own foreign policy vision for technology that cements its place alongside China and the US.

As part of the proposals announced on June 5, Brussels said it would expand its support for digital infrastructure and regulation across Latin America, Asia and Africa, as well as promote democratic values within digital governance structures like those of the United Nations. Priorities for global cooperation, according to the European Commission, include next-generation mobile telecommunications, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and cybersecurity capacity building.

“Europe has huge potential to expand its geopolitical reach on digital issues,,” said Kaja Kallas, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. “We are ready to collaborate more closely with partners on shared digital challenges while remaining committed to individual rights and freedoms.”

In its most recent meeting with Japan last month, for instance, the European Commission announced joint work around next-generation telecommunications research and efforts to link up each other’s separate digital identity infrastructures. The goal has been to shore up global alliances that reinforce the bloc’s blend of digital regulation and economic competitiveness.

Until recently, the EU had a similar relationship with the US — via the EU-US Trade and Technology Council — though those transatlantic ties have waned amid ongoing trade disputes and accusations from Washington that Brussels’ digital regulatory rulebook unfairly harms US tech firms.

In doubling down on its existing international tech diplomacy, Europe is walking a fine line between an ongoing need to engage with like-minded countries on topics from internet governance to AI standards and growing political demands, at home, to boost local economic competitiveness by promoting homegrown tech.

As Washington and Beijing push their own visions of tech globally — one based on a hands-off approach to Silicon Valley, the other an authoritarian take on all-things digital — Brussels has attempted to chart a third way to champion people’s fundamental rights via digital regulation and economic growth through the support of local tech firms.

So far, the 27-country bloc has had more success in creating legislation than building competitors to the likes of Apple and Alibaba. That failure, in part, comes from ongoing internal barriers across the Continent that have made it difficult for investors to efficiently back EU firms at scale and for tech startups to grow quickly from Portugal to Poland.

In response to Donald Trump’s newly-installed administration in Washington, EU policymakers and industry executives are now urging Europe’s political leaders to double down on a “Europe first” strategy, including on tech. That vision relies on building rival digital infrastructure — often publicly funded — to take on the likes of Google and Amazon before these global tech giants secure dominance in emerging technologies like AI, semiconductors and quantum computing.

Europe’s International Digital Strategy, however, should forgo such a “Make Europe Great Again” approach for one that places the EU alongside its international partners in recognition that all countries have strengths and weaknesses — and that more is benefited from working together to promote a free and interoperable internet.

In the current era of transactional geopolitics, Brussels has an opportunity to chart a different diplomatic path that emphasizes openness, competitiveness and fairness at a time when both Washington and Beijing flex their technological muscles in an apparent zero-sum game to see which country can dominate the next decade.

In truth, most countries do not want to follow either the US or China as both seek to cement their global leadership position.

Instead, there is an opportunity, shepherded by the EU, to create a coalition of like-minded countries eager to promote domestic economic growth, while also building international ties around tech-related research, global digital standards and greater accountability for tech firms that span national borders.

That path will be difficult for Europe to navigate amid mounting political pressure, domestically, to promote so-called “digital sovereignty,” or efforts by many in the bloc to prioritize the Continent’s short-term economic interests through mass public spending on digital infrastructure, championing local tech firms above foreign rivals and pulling back on existing digital regulation.

But Europe can not mimic China or the US if it wants to maintain its global position on tech. Only by doubling down on existing international partnerships — at a time when such structures are fraying worldwide — can Brussels demonstrate why it deserves a seat at the top diplomatic table.