Freedom 'made in Europe'?
In the French government, meetings via Microsoft Teams or Zoom are over. This week, the Minister for the Civil Service and State Reform announced that, starting in 2027, his government departments will no longer work with "non-European solutions." Instead, they will use Visio, a platform developed by the French digital authority. Also this week, the European Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, announced that the European Union is launching its own satellite communications system to reduce its dependence on the Starlink service, owned by billionaire Elon Musk. As Kubilius explained on Wednesday, the program, named IRIS2, will consist of more than 280 satellites. The goal is to provide secure space communications for governments, police, military, and emergency services across the EU by 2029.
Beyond the reality check on transatlantic relations, the Greenland crisis has shaken dormant consciences. It can no longer be ignored The immense risk of having communication systems, security, citizens' and companies' data, and home heating in the hands of foreign powers.
Europe now wants to rush to rid itself of these constraints. looking for new partners and reinforcing its "strategic sovereigntyBut the dependencies are multiple and deep. Think about the cards in your wallet: Visa, Mastercard, or even PayPal. They are all American and control critical parts of the global financial infrastructure, as Piero Cipollone, a member of the European Central Bank's executive committee, warned. Süddeutsche Zeitung. This is how the judges of the International Criminal Court were left unable to pay Europe after the US They will be sanctioned for investigating alleged war crimes in the West BankIn thirteen of the eurozone countries, there is no domestic payment system, Cipollone reminds us.
The power that Europe has been ceding on vital issues goes far beyond NATO and will not be resolved overnight. Trump's pushback foreign policy seems to have awakened European leaders, but they are fighting with one hand tied behind their back: on the one hand, they want to build a more sovereign and independent Europe; on the other, they are rewriting policies and cut back on their own laws Under pressure from the corporate lobby and a growing far right, in many cases serving Trumpism.
Moving from rhetoric to practice to reach the public is the great challenge. European alternatives are still weak and often uncompetitive. Wero or Bizum are swimming against the tide in an American ocean of payments; LeChat It tries to compete with ChatGPT, but the technological gap is enormous. And of course, there's a near-total absence of alternatives on the scale of Twitter, WhatsApp, or Instagram. Furthermore, while Europe tries to close the front door in Washington, the back door remains wide open for TikTok, Huawei, and the unstoppable Chinese electric car industry. The question is no longer whether Europe can compete, but whether it will be able to forge its own freedom.