Europe’s reliance on foreign tech firms could be “weaponised against us”, the EU’s digital chief Henna Virkkunen warned today, urging more use of homegrown services for critical data.
Her comments come as Brussels prepares a potential ban of some Chinese telecoms equipment from EU territory and comes under pressure from Washington to ease digital regulations.
“We are really living in a world where that kind of very strong dependencies… can be also weaponised against us,” Virkkunen told reporters in French city Lille.
“That’s why it’s important that we are really looking (at) our critical sectors and the dependencies that we have,” she added.
Virkkunen reiterated her January call to review the EU’s cybersecurity legislation, including by adding requirements to cut out telecoms hardware from certain “high risk” suppliers.
China’s Huawei and ZTE are not targeted by name, observers expect them to fall under the “high risk” classification in the proposed text.
As for cloud computing — where many European companies and governments rely on American providers — “it’s important that we are controlling that in Europe and the data is also localised in Europe,” Virkkunen said.
She is expected to propose “tech sovereignty” measures in May covering the cloud, artificial intelligence and semiconductors sectors.
The commissioner rejected negotiation with the US about how the EU drafts its digital rulebook, after American ambassador to Brussels Andrew Puzder told Politico that he wanted to open a dialogue.
“When it comes to our digital rules, it’s very clear. It’s our sovereign right in the European Union that we decide ourselves about our digital rules,” Virkkunen said.
“It’s not something that we can, for example, trade on, because we know that from the USA side, many times they propose that our digital rules, they should be part of trade negotiations.”
