Google has criticized the European Union’s intentions to achieve digital sovereignty through open-source software. The company warned that Brussels’ policies aimed at reducing dependence on American tech companies could harm competitiveness. According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.
Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, warned of a competitive paradox that Europe is facing. According to the Financial Times, he said that creating regulatory barriers would be harmful in a context of rapid technological advancement. His remarks came just days after the European Commission concluded a public consultation assessing the transition to open-source software.
Google’s chief legal officer clarified that he is not opposed to digital sovereignty, but recommended making use of the “best technologies in the world.” Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms to implement measures ensuring data protection. Local management or servers located in Europe to store information are among the options.
The EU is preparing a technological sovereignty package aimed at eliminating dependence on third-party software, such as Google’s. After reviewing proposals, it concluded that reliance on external suppliers for critical infrastructure entails economic risks and creates vulnerabilities. The strategy focuses not only on regulation but also on adopting open-source software to achieve digital sovereignty.
According to Google, this change would represent a problem for users. Walker argues that the market moves faster than legislation and warns that regulatory friction will only leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he calls “the most competitive technological transition we have ever seen.” As it did with the DMA and other laws, Google is playing on fear. Kent Walker suggested that this initiative would stifle innovation and deny people access to the “best digital tools.”
The promotion of open-source software aims to break dependence on foreign suppliers, especially during a period of instability caused by the Trump administration. The European Union has highlighted the risks of continuing under this system and proposes that public institutions should have full control over their own technology.
According to a study on the impact of open-source software, the European Commission found that it contributes between €65 billion and €95 billion annually to the European Union’s GDP. The executive body estimates that a 10% increase in contributions to open-source software would generate an additional €100 billion in growth for the bloc’s economy.
Remember, whenever you see a patently weak argument like this from a trillion dollar corporation, they’re not saying it because they think anyone will believe it. They’re saying it to give the corrupt politicians in their pocket some way to pull a straight face when voting in the corporation’s favour.
We saw already tech paying off the US to bully europe into backing off of their previous demands and controls on tech. Europe has bad leadership, they backed off, and surrendered all last year to the US administration, there is no reason to think they won’t this time after google pays them off to do it again.
Europe is too busy trying to bring in the trojan horses of age checks and chatcontrol behind the gates to worry about protecting from tech, but rather to cooperate with tech to subjugate their citizens to secret social scores to determine winners and losers in life, with peter thiel and his ilk doing the deciding. The UK is already most of the way there, and the rest of europe is trying to follow, over and over and over. They only need to win once, the defenders of liberal democracy need to win every time.
Europe needs real leadership pushing popular reform. They will fall to fascists in league with the US that will fix their elections too on their current course of status quo mainstream politics with the far right as the only real reform option.
We give them reform, or nazis will, those are the only two choices, and the starmers and macrons of the world still don’t know it or don’t care.