Digital sovereignty in the EU – A brief overview

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The NSA scandal in 2013 spurred the political discussion on „Digital Sovereignty“ in the European Union ^{(Pohlmann et al 2014, 2 and Misterek 2017, 20)}.

^{(translated from Misterek 2017, 20)}

Parallel to the political discussion, research has also dealt more intensively with this topic. In their analyses of the European Union’s approach, various authors point to three levels of investigation: the individual or citizen, the company and the state ^{(Pohl 2016, 11)}. Basically, a broad concept of sovereignty is taken as a basis, which can also be summarized with the keyword „autonomy“. In this respect, it is decoupled from the original concept of sovereignty which has been applied to territorial references.

Recommendations regarding state digital sovereignty tend to be directed against a European foreclosure strategy ^{(e.g. Werden 2016, 48; Tesch 2016, 200 and Veddern 2016, 335)}. Rather, effective data protection for citizens, the promotion of tech companies that are independent of the US economy, and a digital infrastructure that is as transparent as possible are favored. ^{(Tesch 2016, 195)}.

According to Santaniello, the European Union’s approach in the early years of the Internet can be described as „digital neoliberalism“. It was primarily the private sector that was supposed to make decisions. Policies were largely limited to initiatives to deregulate the market, protect copyright, and encourage private investment. The rationale was an economic one, and there was a rejection of government control. Decision-making within privately guided policy venues such as the Internet Coporation for Assigned Names and Numbers was preferred.

Based on the U.S. example, this model has been prevalent within the European Union since the 1990s – which is particularly evident in the „Digital Agenda for Europe“ (2010) and the „Digital Single Market Strategy“ (2015) ^{(Santaniello 2021, 24f.)}. For some years now, however – Santaniello is referring here to a speech by French President Emanuel Macron to the 2018 Internet Governance Forum – there seems to have been a trend toward a strategy of „digital sovereigntism“ or „digital constitutionalism.“

What both approaches have in common is that they call for more regulation by the state and propagate a high level of enforcement. In other words, these strategies aim at binding legal norms for nation states and international agreements ^{(ibid., 25 ff.)}.

Overall, the European Union’s perspective on the Internet and the sovereignty associated with it is a democratic-liberal one, and the focus is on ideas of freedom (of expression), fundamental rights and cooperation. The discussion centers on a digital transformation based on European values such as sustainability, security, trust and fairness ^{(Jelinek 2021, 1 and 5)} . Above all, it is not a matter of replacing national modern-analog sovereignty, but of supplementing it with a supranational, contemporary-digital one.

In this context, the actors are particularly concerned with the question of whether popular sovereignty can be transferred to a model of supranational sovereignty and how ^{(Floridi 2020, 375)}. IThe European debate focuses more on the autonomous individual and the self-determination of the citizen than on the state –

^{(Pohle/Thiel 2020, 11f.)}

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