Charles Michel, President of the European Council highlighted during his speech on 3rd February at the online event ‘Masters of Digital 2021 ‘ that ‘Digital sovereignty is central to European strategic autonomy’.
He began his speech underlining that ‘Digital is one of the two pillars, with climate change, of our European transformation strategy’. While defining strategic autonomy as the way of being able to make choices, he also stressed the point that ‘Interdependence is natural, even desirable. Over-dependence, however, is not’. He added that no strategic autonomy can be reached without digital sovereignty.
He saw manufacturing of chips and microprocessors as one of the obstacle to overcome. “We also have to ramp up our plan for chips and microprocessors – from design to advanced manufacturing – that will equip the interconnected “things” in our daily lives. Today Europe accounts for 10% of global production”. He stressed that ” We should double that figure to become less dependent”.
Read the full speech transcript here.