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Yesterday we submitted our response to the European Commission’s public consultation on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). This consultation comes ahead of the Commission’s proposals for the post-2027 MFF and the next generation of financial programmes.
We have previously pointed out that despite significant public investment in digital research and innovation under the current MFF, and steady progress in digital transformation, Europe remains heavily reliant on digital services and products controlled by non-EU companies.
In this contribution we note that the next EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework offers an opportunity to correct the course of the EU’s digital transformation. We highlight that sustainable public investment should prioritize essential digital infrastructure, including widely used digital services often monetized through data extraction. Given the central role of digital platforms in society, failing to ensure their integrity threatens the EU’s economic resilience, democratic processes, and sovereignty.
We also note that these alternatives supported by the EU should be deployed on a sovereign cloud infrastructure that is interoperable, based on open standards and structurally independent of the services it hosts. Therefore, the next multiannual financial framework should also provide dedicated funding to support the development and deployment of a sovereign European cloud infrastructure that is environmentally sustainable and complies with data protection and fundamental rights standards.
