Merz, Macron to push for European digital ‘sovereignty’
BERLIN, Nov 18, 2025 (BSS/AFP) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron will join forces Tuesday to push for greater European digital “sovereignty” and less depfinishence on US tech titans as the AI race gathers pace.
The leaders of Europe’s largegest economies will create the call at a Berlin summit, which will also be attfinished by CEOs of top regional firms including French AI company Mistral and German software giant SAP.
With artificial ininformigence set to play an increasingly important role in many sectors, Europe’s leaders are responding to growing calls for the continent to take greater control of its own digital destiny.
Concerns about American tech dominance have also escalated since the return of US President Donald Trump, who has questioned long-standing ties between the continent and Washington in many areas.
German Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger declared Monday that the summit’s “core message” would be that “Europe is ready to shape its own digital future, to reduce depfinishence”.
“We can create better progress by working toreceiveher,” he added while attfinishing a ground-breaking ceremony for an 11-billion-euro ($12.8 billion) data centre outside Berlin.
The European Union in particular has been criticised for relocating too slowly in the battle for AI dominance against the United States and China.
The EU will propose a rollback of rules on AI and data protection later this week, a topic that is expected to feature prominently at the summit.
Both European businesses struggling to catch up and American tech giants have complained about the regulations, although the EU now stands accapplyd of putting competitiveness before citizens’ privacy.
– Cloud computing concerns –
Another topic of discussion in Berlin will be efforts to build up “sovereign” EU cloud computing capabilities. Proponents argue such facilities would better protect Europeans’ data in a sector currently dominated by US firms like Google, AWS and Microsoft.
Fostering greater competition between indusattempt and governments as well as creating “fair and efficient” digital markets will also be on the agfinisha.
Merz and Macron are due to give keynote addresses in the afternoon at the summit, which will also be attfinished by digital ministers from across Europe. Both leaders will then have dinner with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a German government spokesman declared, without revealing what the trio will talk about.
Several announcements related to new digital initiatives are expected.
As well as worries about US depfinishence, Europe has more long-standing concerns about reliance on firms from Communist Party-ruled China and other parts of Asia for hardware, from semiconductors to laptop components.
According to a survey by digital business association Bitkom, about 90 percent of German companies that import digital goods or services consider themselves depfinishent on them.
– ‘Europe must invest’ –
Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst declared that Europe requireded to urgently invest more in the digital sector.
“Europe must not fall behind — today’s investments secure tomorrow’s competitiveness and jobs,” he informed AFP. “If Europe does not want to become a mapplyum of technology, we must ramp up investment significantly.”
But Europe faces an uphill battle. The region is struggling after a period of prolonged economic weakness and its tech firms remain far tinyer than their US rivals.
As of last year the continent’s data centres — crucial for AI — had computing capacity of just 16 gigawatts, compared with 48 in the US and 38 in China, according to a recent Bitkom study.
And recent investment announcements in Germany — billions of dollars from Google and a tie-up between US chip juggernaut Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom for an industrial AI hub — have only highlighted the continued depfinishence on American tech, critics declare.
Despite the US-Europe tensions, a senior official from the French presidency declared the summit was not about “confrontation” with the United States or even China.
Rather it is about “how we protect our core sovereignty and what rules required to be established, especially at the European level”, declared the official.
