Beltug and sister CIO associations Cigref (France), CIO Platform (Netherlands) and VOICE (Germany), have drafted a Joint Declaration on Digital Strategic Autonomy and European Sovereignty for the 18th November Franco-German Summit.
18 / 11 / 25
The text of the Joint Declaration is as follows:
“We, representatives of businesses and economic actors in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, call on Member States and European institutions to fully assume their responsibilities in terms of appropriate public policies that serve both society and its economy.
Sovereignty is a fundamental attribute of states and supranational organisations. Hence, we affirm the need for states to clearly express their ambitions in terms of sovereignty, not to close themselves off from the rest of the world, but to build a competitive, sustainable, and open economy in which the European digital industry has its rightful place.
Europe must equip itself with a world-class, state-of-the-art industry capable of meeting the needs of its businesses and citizens. It has to be aware how the new technologies will impact the labour markets.
It is up to the Member States of the European Union and its institutions to meet this requirement by filling the investment gaps that weaken our productive and innovative economy.
In 2025, we estimate Europe’s digital dependency in B2B software and cloud services to be close to €264 billion, as presented in a study published by Asteres in April 2025. Without action, and in a context of average annual growth of 10%, this figure could reach €500 billion in 2032. Europe cannot and must not become the industrial prey of other continents. In the age of artificial intelligence, we can no longer remain spectators. This is an eminently political issue that goes beyond semantic debates on the definition of sovereignty.
Our positions on the seven main themes of the Summit:
The European partners reaffirm the need for greater coherence and consistency within the European Union’s digital regulatory framework. The growing complexity and overlap of existing legislation have generated disproportionate burdens for companies and their suppliers.
We therefore call for an ambitious effort to streamline and harmonise digital regulations, based on legal clarity, organisational coherence, and the elimination of redundant texts and procedures. We need to simplify the implementation model for supervision because it is fragmented and difficult to predict.
This approach must be fully integrated into the development of a true European Digital Single Market, ensuring uniform implementation and tangible administrative simplification. In the longer term, this process should lead to greater harmonisation, and where appropriate, to the mutualisation of regulatory authorities across Europe. This should lead to a regulatory level playing field within the EU, where producers and vendors both of European and of extra-European origin comply with and abide by the same legal norms.
The signatories reaffirm their commitment to a clear and assertive European preference in public procurement policies.
Such a preference is not a form of protectionism, but rather a strategic orientation aimed at strengthening Europe’s digital services industry, thus fostering competitiveness, employment, and resilience of the European economy. To encourage private enterprises to embrace this dynamic, we call for the establishment of incentive mechanisms, including fiscal measures and the sharing of experiences in migrating from one vendor to another, coordinated at the European level.
A responsible and sovereign public procurement policy must become a key industrial policy tool, stimulating demand for European technologies and supporting the growth of local suppliers and innovators. Incentive mechanisms for new European vendors include the creation, enforcement and, most important, long-term maintenance of communication and protocol standards led by the EU authorities. We call for a clear market signal through public procurement choices.
Achieving this goal will require massive investment in computing power, data storage, and network capacity, so that European data remains secure, sovereign, and hosted within the European legal space.
Digital sovereignty requires control over critical infrastructures, first and foremost the cloud. In the light of recent geopolitics shifts, Europe must develop a trusted European cloud ecosystem, founded on high standards of security and compliance, particularly through the revision of the Cybersecurity Act (CSA) and the evolution of the EUCS certification scheme. The latter should provide several levels of protection, each associated with a legally binding trust label, ensuring genuine immunity from extraterritorial legislation.
The signatories emphasise the urgent need to strengthen the enforcement of European competition law to ensure fair conditions for all digital market participants. Abusive practices by certain dominant players, particularly in the B2B sector, threaten the competitiveness of European firms and the diversity of the digital ecosystem. We call upon the European Commission and national authorities to exercise increased vigilance and to rigorously implement the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Major global technology providers must be designated as gatekeepers whenever their market position enables them to impose unfair commercial conditions, limit their clients industrial choices and restrict free competition.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a transformative economic force, but it also requires a responsible and trustworthy governance framework. These models must rely on European computing infrastructures and embody digital trust by design. It is equally essential to uphold intellectual property rights, preserve sovereignty over training data, and ensure that these technologies remain free from extraterritorial legal regimes.
We welcome and fully support the initiative to create a European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC) dedicated to the development of digital commons, endorsed by the European Commission. This initiative, initiated by France, Germany, the Netherlands and supported by Italy, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Poland, reflects a tangible and shared vision of technological sovereignty. It aims to produce open-source solutions for European public administrations and companies, fostering interoperability, transparency, and innovation. Digital commons represent a cornerstone of European digital trust and autonomy, enabling Europe to innovate for itself and by itself.
Digital identity constitutes the foundational layer of national and European sovereignty in the digital sphere. We support the deployment of a high-trust European digital identity for all EU citizens, guaranteeing both security and privacy while ensuring interoperability among Member States. Such an identity will simplify administrative and economic processes, particularly through Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures, while strengthening governments’ ability to protect and serve their citizens within a secure digital environment. A robust European digital identity must become a concrete instrument of strategic autonomy and cohesion in the European digital space.
In conclusion, to give these guidelines real impact at this summit, we call on France and Germany, as well as on the other EU Member States, the Commission and the Parliament, to agree on a shared definition of the concept of digital sovereignty.”