Imagine a world where the digital threads connecting you to daily life suddenly fray and snap. Your credit cards stop working, online shopping accounts are frozen, and essential digital services from major tech companies become inaccessible. Cross-border bank transfers to family are impossible, and the very foundation of global commerce, the U.S. dollar, is beyond reach. For one individual, this isn’t a dystopian fantasy, but a chilling reality.
### The Personal Cost of Geopolitical Tensions
This stark scenario became the lived experience of Canadian judge Kimberly Prost. Last year, the Trump administration placed Ms. Prost, a distinguished judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC), on its economic sanctions list. Her offense? Serving on an appeals chamber that, in 2020, unanimously authorized the ICC’s prosecutor to investigate alleged war crimes in Afghanistan since 2003 – a probe that included potential scrutiny of U.S. service personnel. The United States, not recognizing the ICC’s jurisdiction, swiftly retaliated, also sanctioning several other ICC judges and prosecutors.
Ms. Prost now finds her name alongside those of notorious figures like suspected terrorists, North Korean hackers, and Iranian intelligence operatives. In an interview with The Irish Times, she described the profound impact of these sanctions as “paralyzing.” Her case offers a stark illustration of the comprehensive disruption that can ensue when an individual is suddenly severed from U.S.-dominated digital and financial systems. This high-profile incident has ignited a growing awareness among European lawmakers and leaders regarding their own nations’ profound and potentially precarious reliance on American technology.
### Europe’s Digital Reckoning: A Quest for Sovereignty
The unpredictable diplomatic maneuvers and challenges to international norms under the Trump administration, including threats against NATO allies, have served as a critical catalyst. These actions have compelled some EU countries to actively explore avenues for detaching from U.S. tech infrastructure and reclaiming their digital sovereignty.
#### “Lost the Internet”: A Stark Admission
In Belgium, the nation’s cybersecurity chief, Miguel De Bruycker, openly acknowledged a challenging truth in a recent interview: Europe has, in essence, “lost the internet” to the United States. He highlighted how the U.S. has accumulated a dominant share of the world’s critical tech and financial systems. De Bruycker asserted that it is “currently impossible” for data to be stored entirely within Europe due to this pervasive U.S. control over digital infrastructure. His urgent call to action emphasizes the imperative for the European Union to bolster its indigenous technological capabilities across the bloc.
#### Legislative Steps and National Initiatives
This sentiment is reverberating through the highest echelons of European governance. On January 22, the European Parliament adopted a significant, albeit non-binding, report. This directive urged the European Commission to pinpoint specific areas where the EU can strategically reduce its dependence on foreign digital providers. Parliamentarians underscored that the European Union and its 27 member states rely on non-EU countries for over 80% of their digital products, services, and infrastructure. This vote coincides with a broader movement by the European Commission to bring more essential technologies and dependencies onto European soil.
Individual member states are also taking concrete steps. The French government, for instance, announced its intention to replace widely used U.S.-made video conferencing platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams with its own domestically developed software, Visio.
### A Legacy of Surveillance: The Roots of Distrust
Concerns surrounding digital sovereignty are far from new, tracing their origins back decades. A pivotal moment arrived in 2001 with the introduction of the U.S. Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. This legislation dramatically expanded the surveillance capabilities of U.S. intelligence agencies, enabling them to monitor global communications in unprecedented ways. Critically, this included spying on the communications of citizens within its closest European allies, often circumventing the EU’s stringent data protection and privacy regulations.
Years later, in 2011, Microsoft publicly conceded that as an American tech company, it could be legally compelled to hand over Europeans’ data in response to secret U.S. government orders. The full extent of this widespread surveillance was dramatically revealed in 2013 through classified documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, confirming what many had long suspected.
### Empowering the Individual: Reclaiming Digital Autonomy
Beyond governmental actions, there’s a burgeoning grassroots movement encouraging individual users to migrate away from U.S.-based tech providers. Tech workers themselves have urged their executives to speak out against perceived excesses by U.S. federal immigration agencies.
Independent journalists like Paris Marx have published comprehensive guides for disentangling oneself from U.S. tech services. Furthermore, dedicated platforms such as Switch-to-EU and European Alternatives actively promote the adoption of open-source tools and European alternatives to the offerings of Big Tech giants.
As the digital landscape becomes increasingly entwined with geopolitical power dynamics, the push for digital sovereignty in Europe represents a critical re-evaluation of trust, security, and independence in the interconnected world. The journey towards a more resilient and self-reliant digital future for Europe has truly begun.