Looking beyond the tech sovereignty package: how the EU is moving to ensure tech sector resilience - Global Policy Watch

The European Commission, never one to rush into anything, has offered up measures to 'promote cyber resilience' and 'reduce dependencies on external actors.' Because nothing says 'sovereignty' like consulting a committee for another two years on what 'cyber resilience' actually means.

The article, now in July, is already analyzing the package as if it were a fait accompli, but let's be honest: this is the same Brussels that took a decade to standardize phone chargers. The package mentions 'reducing dependencies on external actors' — which is EU-speak for 'we don't want to buy American AI chips, but we also don't want to admit we can't build our own.' The irony is thick enough to spread on a croissant: the EU wants digital sovereignty, but its biggest tech firms are still basically American subsidiaries with better healthcare.

And what about the actual teeth? The package is 'legislation' in name, but enforcement mechanisms are as vague as a politician's promise. Cyber resilience sounds grand until you realize it means a few dozen bureaucrats in Luxembourg sending strongly worded letters. The EU is right to worry about external dependencies — especially when those dependencies include U.S. cloud providers that laugh at EU data localization laws. But this package will likely result in a flurry of compliance paperwork and not much else. Sovereignty: the feeling of being in control, without the bother of actually being in control.