After the rather vague agreements at the Berlin sovereignty summit in November, Germany and France want to take the next step towards strengthening Europe’s digital independence. At the start of the VivaTech 2026 trade fair in Paris, the two countries published a joint definition of digital sovereignty on Wednesday. They want to help consistently reduce critical dependencies in the tech sector and support sovereign solutions from Europe.
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Digital sovereignty is therefore the ability to “develop, provide, use, adapt and control” technologies such as hardware and software “independently, self-determined and securely”. This is intended to ensure the decision-making power over their processes and activities. The paper was drawn up by a joint task force from both countries. It is also intended to serve as a political stimulus to enrich the debate about the EU Commission’s new package for technological sovereignty.
For Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU), the project is a geopolitical imperative of the hour due to increasing cyber attacks and interruptions in supply chains. Europe must no longer stand in its own way, he said. We need to join forces to strengthen domestic start-ups and build global champions. As the largest EU member states, Germany and France want to lead the way, mobilize additional partners and anchor the issue in future legal acts.
Six dimensions for digital independence
The new definition describes digital sovereignty based on six dimensions, which are supported by concrete criteria catalogs. The focus is on legal enforcement options, the protection of sensitive data and the resilience of critical infrastructures. In practice, this means the preferred use of digital products from providers from the EU or trustworthy partner countries.
To avoid lock-in effects, the strategy relies on open source solutions and modular architectures. In addition, the targeted development and expansion of our own computing infrastructures for AI and cloud computing should be promoted.
The initiative is supported by the new edition of the German-French Future Work. This platform is intended to intensify the exchange between private actors and the digital ecosystems of both countries in order to increase Europe’s technological resilience and competitiveness.
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France’s Digital Minister Anne Le Hénanff referred to the partnership between SAP and Mistral AI as the first tangible example of how a European, sovereign AI can meet the real needs of administrations and companies. One of the first new tasks of the future work is the development of a common catalog of sovereign digital solutions and a framework for assessing critical interdependencies.
(wpl)
