European Parliament lays groundwork for a democratic and sovereign digital infrastructure
People vs Big Tech urges the EU to build a people-first digital future or risk falling further behind
On June 3rd, the European Parliament’s industry committee (ITRE) adopted a non-binding report calling on the EU to fight its excessive dependence on Big Tech’s monopolies by developing a strong European digital infrastructure.
With this report, a broad coalition of Members of the European Parliament from Greens, S&D, EPP and Renew groups established key principles for the future of European technological sovereignty, outvoting an initial draft proposed by the ESN group.
People vs Big Tech has been following the work of the ITRE committee closely and welcomes that the draft report does recognise:
- The need to create a base layer of digital public infrastructure (DPI) that ensures sovereignty and a competition-friendly market environment
- That Digital Public Infrastructure should be based on common and open standards, embrace interoperability and interconnectedness, as well as ensure privacy and security by default
- That the simplification of EU legislation must not endanger fundamental rights
- That Europe must develop cloud solutions offering enhanced levels of control over sensitive data and allowing cloud users to switch providers and choose options that meet their needs
- The importance of leveraging public procurement to support the deployment and scaling of open and interoperable digital solutions
- That these objectives will not be achieved through regulation alone and will require significant public investment.
Establishing these principles is a step in the right direction.
In the coming weeks, the European Parliament will have an opportunity to express political support for digital infrastructure that works for the people, workers, businesses, and the planet, where creativity and competition can flourish while protecting EU fundamental rights and enabling a robust and inclusive democracy.
Ahead of the plenary vote this summer, the People vs Big Tech coalition calls on the European Parliament to:
- Ask the European Commission to leverage public procurement to promote rights-respecting alternatives to Big Tech monopolies.
Whereas the current version of the ITRE report already acknowledges that public procurement is a powerful tool that should be used strategically to deploy and scale open and interoperable digital solutions, MEPs still have an opportunity to demand that EU procurement rules include enforceable conditionalities based on compliance with fundamental rights, consumer rights and the highest standards of data protection.
- Speak up loudly against the creeping technosolutionist narrative pushed by foreign Big Tech companies against EU regulation.
Fundamental rights, environmental safeguards and consumer protection are essential pillars of Europe’s sovereignty and long-term security. The draft ITRE report recognises that the simplification of EU legislation must not endanger any of the fundamental rights protected in the Union and should not be rushed through without proper consultation and impact assessment. At the same time, the draft text indulges several times into the need to avoid excessive administrative burden and prioritise an innovation-driven regulatory streamlining, without emphasizing the critical importance of enforcing existing legislation such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Artificial Intelligence Act.
- Recognise social media platforms as digital infrastructure and establish algorithmic pluralism as a key principle for sovereign European technologies.
The ITRE report overlooks a critical point: social media platforms now function as critical infrastructure for public debate and democratic processes. Just as media pluralism protects democracy, algorithmic pluralism is vital for our search and social web infrastructure to ensure people can choose the algorithms that provide them with information and switch providers without losing data or networks. With the DSA and DMA in place, the European Parliament should urge the Commission to explore legal pathways requiring gatekeepers to offer non-discriminatory access to their social graphs and APIs. Opening up dominant online platforms for competing algorithms and user interfaces is key to both user empowerment and democratic resilience against disinformation.To secure a truly sovereign, democratic, and resilient digital future, Europe must enforce existing regulation, while moving toward thoughtful construction of new infrastructures, institutions, and alliances grounded in the public interest.
This is not merely a technical or economic challenge, but a democratic imperative.
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