Digital Sovereignty, Economic Intelligence and Europe’s Struggle to Regain Control
European technological sovereignty can no longer be treated as a secondary chapter of industrial policy. It has become a question of power, security, freedom of action and economic survival. The postponement of the European plan on artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure does not merely reveal a technical difficulty within the Commission. It exposes a deeper political contradiction: the European Union has understood that data, computing centres, semiconductors, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence are now strategic infrastructures, but it has not yet decided whether it is truly ready to pay the price of sovereignty.
In the three articles I published in VeilleMag on digital sovereignty, I sought to show precisely this transition: data have become a terrain of global confrontation; digital sovereignty is now a vital stake in the economic war of the future; and Europe must regain control of its own infrastructures if it does not want to remain trapped between the United States and China.
When Data Become Territory
In my first article, I underlined a fundamental point: digital sovereignty is no longer an abstract concept. It is the ability of a state, or of a union of states, to control its own data, technologies and essential digital infrastructures without depending on external actors. This means deciding where citizens’ data are stored, who can access them, how they can be used and what decision-making autonomy remains to states in cyberspace.
The formula according to which data are the “new oil” is now insufficient. Oil powered mechanical industry, mobility and military power in the twentieth century. Data fuel artificial intelligence, finance, predictive healthcare, surveillance, logistics, defence, public administration, political profiling and information warfare. They are at once raw material, cognitive infrastructure and a lever of command.
The issue is therefore not only the protection of privacy. It concerns the control of knowledge. Whoever collects, stores, classifies and processes data builds competitive advantage, social influence and strategic capability. If these functions are dominated by extra-European actors, European sovereignty is not formally abolished, but it is materially emptied.
Economic Warfare in Cyberspace
In my second article published in VeilleMag, I connected this transformation to the French school of economic warfare. The École de Guerre Économique in Paris, founded by Christian Harbulot, interprets cyberspace as a new battlefield of economic warfare: not a neutral environment, but a field of confrontation between states, companies, platforms, security services and private powers.
This approach is decisive. The digital economy is not simply a market. It is a system of domination. Economic warfare no longer operates only through tariffs, hostile takeovers, sanctions, control of raw materials or traditional industrial espionage. It now passes through cloud infrastructure, operating systems, networks, processors, social platforms, search engines, artificial intelligence models, technical standards, extraterritorial legal norms and information influence.
Information warfare thus becomes a multiplier of power. Disinformation, appropriation of strategic data, reputational manipulation, control of digital environments and the ability to orient cognitive flows have become ordinary instruments of economic competition. A power that controls platforms does not merely control a market: it controls part of the way societies, companies and governments perceive the world.
Europe Between Regulation and Dependence
For years, Brussels believed it could exercise power through regulation. The General Data Protection Regulation, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, the Data Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act gave the European Union the profile of a major regulatory power. But regulation alone does not produce sovereignty.
In my first article, I recalled that Europe understood early the need to protect data, but also knows that laws are not enough: infrastructures, European technologies, secure data centres, cybersecurity, local computing capacity and an autonomous and resilient digital ecosystem are also required.
This is where the European plan on artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure must be placed. Tripling data-centre capacity, building AI factories and gigafactories, strengthening European high-performance computing, supporting continental providers and reducing dependence on American hyperscalers are not merely technical measures. They are acts of defensive economic warfare and, if properly conducted, also offensive economic warfare.
Defensive, because they protect data, infrastructures and freedom of action.
Offensive, because they allow Europe to produce standards, models, skills, companies and influence capabilities.
The Cloud Act as Legal Interference
In my third article published in VeilleMag, I addressed the American Cloud Act as an emblematic example of legal interference and strategic dependence. The 2018 US law extended the reach of American authorities over data managed by US providers, even when those data are stored outside US territory.
This means that data physically hosted in Europe may remain legally exposed to American legislation when they are managed by US companies.
The issue is not technical, but political. If a European administration, hospital, ministry, university, major company or critical infrastructure uses services subject to an external jurisdiction, part of sovereignty is transferred outside the European perimeter. Not through a treaty. Not through an occupation. But through contracts, servers, platforms and extraterritorial norms.
The French school of economic warfare interprets the Cloud Act as a genuine offensive in digital economic warfare, because it legalises the potential access of the United States to foreign data and reinforces American informational hegemony. Consequently, digital sovereignty also becomes a question of legal sovereignty over digital information.
Gaia-X: A Necessary but Ambiguous Response
In my third article, I also analysed Gaia-X as one of Europe’s main responses to dependence on the American cloud. Born from a Franco-German initiative, Gaia-X was intended to build a federated European ecosystem of data and cloud services based on transparency, interoperability, security, localisation and respect for European standards.
The idea was correct: to create a European space of trust between users and providers, reduce reliance on extra-European platforms for the most sensitive data and build an infrastructure consistent with the values and interests of the Union.
But Gaia-X also shows Europe’s limits. Excessive openness to foreign actors, including major American and Chinese groups, weakened the perception of its original mission. If the infrastructure designed to emancipate Europe from external hyperscalers ends up including precisely those actors in significant positions, the risk is one of internal interference: the wolf enters the sheepfold not as an external enemy, but as a necessary partner.
The case of Scaleway, which left Gaia-X after denouncing the excessive weight of non-European members, clearly shows the contradiction. Europe wants autonomy, but it does not always dare to exclude the actors from which it claims to emancipate itself.
The False Dilemma Between Openness and Autarky
Digital sovereignty does not mean autarkic closure. In my second article, I evoked the risk of a “digital iron curtain”, meaning the fragmentation of cyberspace into technological, legal and regulatory blocs that are increasingly incompatible. Restrictions on Huawei, bans on TikTok in public-sector devices, the rivalry between the United States and China and the growing incompatibility of technological ecosystems all point toward digital decoupling.
Europe must imitate neither the American model, based on the dominance of large private platforms, nor the Chinese model, based on comprehensive state control of the digital space, nor the Russian model, oriented toward the isolation of the national internet. It must find a third path: controlled openness, selective interdependence, protection of strategic data, local control of critical infrastructures and the ability to cooperate without becoming dependent.
The point is not to depend on no one. That would be impossible. The point is to choose on whom, where, how and in which sectors to depend. Sovereignty as choice means precisely this: not eliminating all interdependence, but preventing interdependence from becoming subordination.
Europe’s Dependence on the United States and China
European vulnerability stems from a double exposure. The United States dominates the upper layer of the digital ecosystem: platforms, cloud infrastructure, venture capital, advanced artificial intelligence models, software, operating systems, universities, digital military industry and global influence capability. China dominates or conditions a crucial part of the material base: technological manufacturing, telecommunications, components, rare earths, electronics, infrastructure and supply chains.
In my first article, I recalled that Amazon, Microsoft and Google control a decisive share of the global cloud market, while Europe lacks comparable champions. In the second, I underlined the risk that Europe may become a digital colony of the United States for platforms, cloud and software, or of China for material infrastructure, networks and technological raw materials.
This is the real stake. It is not a question of anti-Americanism or anti-Chinese sentiment. It is a question of realism. A power that does not control its critical infrastructures depends on the priorities, laws, interests and crises of others.
Economic Intelligence as an Operational Method
The French school of economic warfare offers a method here. Economic intelligence is not simple information gathering. It is knowledge organised for action. It means identifying vulnerabilities, protecting informational assets, anticipating competitors’ moves, supporting strategic supply chains, guiding public decisions, building influence and strengthening the freedom of action of the state and its companies.
Applied to European digital sovereignty, this approach requires several concrete steps.
First: mapping dependencies. Not in general terms, but sector by sector: cloud, data centres, semiconductors, submarine cables, industrial software, health data, military data, energy networks, public infrastructures, payment systems, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
Second: classifying strategic assets. Not everything can be treated as an ordinary market. Public, health, military, energy and industrial data must be considered security assets.
Third: using public procurement as a lever of sovereignty. If European states systematically purchase extra-European services, they finance their own dependence with public money.
Fourth: protecting strategic companies. This means defending them against hostile takeovers, industrial espionage, technological capture, dependence on external capital and uncontrolled transfers of know-how.
Fifth: building influence. Economic warfare is also conducted through standards, certifications, norms, universities, think tanks, foundations, rankings, consulting firms, communication and reputation.
Digital Economic Patriotism
In my third article, I recalled the concept of digital economic patriotism. Not as a nationalist slogan, but as a doctrine of industrial survival. Europe must support its own technological champions, defend strategic supply chains, develop local skills, retain talent, support research and accept that, in some sectors, the market alone is not enough.
For decades, Europe cultivated a form of naive liberalism: the idea that competition was sufficient, that openness was always positive, that technology was neutral, that the American ally could not also be a competitor, and that dependence could be disguised as efficiency.
Digital economic warfare has disproved all of this. The United States protects its strategic companies. China builds national champions. Russia attempts the path of sovereign internet. India seeks digital autonomy and control over data. Europe alone still too often oscillates between ambitious regulation and industrial timidity.
European Artificial Intelligence Factories
The new European plan on artificial intelligence factories and gigafactories must be read within this framework. An AI factory is not simply a research centre. It is a computational arsenal. It concentrates computing power, data, skills, public research, companies, universities, energy and industrial capacity.
Gigafactories represent the higher level: structures capable of training advanced models, competing with American and Chinese scale and supporting a European artificial intelligence ecosystem.
But without a doctrine of economic warfare, these infrastructures risk becoming empty shells or, worse, European platforms integrated into extra-European dependencies. The decisive question is not only how much computing capacity will be built. It is who will control it, with which processors, with which software, with which data, with which access rules, with which suppliers, with which legal guarantees and for which strategic purpose.
Strategic and Military Assessment
Digital sovereignty is also military sovereignty. Artificial intelligence enters satellite surveillance, electronic warfare, cyber defence, drones, military logistics, predictive maintenance, target identification, protection of critical infrastructures and battlefield management.
A continent that does not control its own computing capacity does not fully control its security. If European armed forces depend on foreign clouds, external processors, non-European systems and updates decided by companies subject to foreign jurisdictions, strategic autonomy remains incomplete.
The distinction between economic warfare and military warfare is narrowing. Not because every data centre is a military base, but because every data centre can become a target, a lever, a surveillance tool or a means of pressure. Whoever controls digital infrastructure controls part of the resilience of the state.
The Postponement of the European Plan as a Political Symptom
The postponement of the European plan on artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure reveals the central issue: Europe wants autonomy, but fears the conflict that autonomy entails. It wants to reduce dependence on the United States, but does not want to irritate Washington. It wants to protect its digital space, but does not want to appear protectionist. It wants a third path, but often fails to build the industrial mass needed to sustain it.
Here the American question is decisive. The United States is a military ally, but also a technological competitor. Its digital power cannot be separated from its foreign policy, extraterritorial legislation, security industry and competition with China. To continue believing that American technology and European interests always coincide means failing to understand the nature of economic warfare.
Economic Scenarios
The first scenario is managed dependence. Europe remains a large regulated market, an advanced consumer and a producer of norms, but continues to purchase platforms, services, software and computing capacity from external actors. In this case, it preserves legal influence but loses material sovereignty.
The second scenario is selective sovereignty. Europe identifies vital sectors: public data, health, defence, energy, research, critical infrastructures, high-performance computing, sensitive language models and cybersecurity. In these fields, it builds autonomous capabilities, even at the cost of commercial tensions.
The third scenario is global fragmentation. The world divides into digital blocs: American, Chinese, European, Indian and perhaps others. Costs rise, interoperability declines, barriers and suspicions grow. In this scenario, those without their own infrastructures will be forced to align with one of the dominant blocs.
The fourth and most ambitious scenario is organised European power. The Union combines regulation, industrial policy, public procurement, economic defence, cybersecurity, data protection, training, research, support for continental champions and influence capability. It does not become autarkic, but it becomes less vulnerable to pressure and blackmail.
Conclusion: Regaining Control
In the three articles I published in VeilleMag, I sought to show that digital sovereignty has become the new passport of political sovereignty. Data are a terrain of global confrontation. Cyberspace is a field of economic warfare. The Cloud Act demonstrates the possibility of legal interference. Gaia-X reveals both the necessity and ambiguity of the European response. European strategies are steps in the right direction, but they remain insufficient if they do not become a doctrine of power.
Regaining control does not mean closing oneself off. It means choosing. It means knowing which dependencies are acceptable and which are not. It means protecting what is vital. It means building infrastructures. It means shaping the market rather than merely undergoing it. It means recognising that technology is not neutral and that digital sovereignty does not arise from declarations, but from the concrete organisation of power.
Digital Europe will not be born from one more regulation. It will be born only if Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Rome and the other member states accept that cloud infrastructure, data, semiconductors, computing centres and artificial intelligence are instruments of the economic war of the future.
Those who do not control at least part of their own digital space are not merely less competitive. They are less free.
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