Investing in Public Digital Infrastructure
On 18 July 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented her Political Guidelines for her second mandate to the European Parliament. Highlighting the need for new investments and infrastructures to boost European competitiveness, the guidelines align with Mario Draghi’s call for a coordinated industrial strategy on technology.
Governments have historically played a major role in building the digital infrastructure and technologies we rely on today, from microprocessors to the Internet or GPS systems. After years of a laissez-faire approach that relied on market forces to drive technological progress, we are currently at a crucial moment when investments in Public Digital Infrastructure have gained global traction again.
Public Digital Infrastructure should be a cornerstone of Europe’s strategy for long-term digital sovereignty. Many of the Digital Rights and Principles that the European Commission has committed to can not be fully realized on privately controlled infrastructure. To safeguard European digital rights, we need access to Digital Public Spaces. This document outlines four key measures to rebalance power in the stack, foster public-driven innovation, and reduce dependence on extractive private infrastructure models:
- Safeguarding internet openness by enforcing layer separation
- Building a sovereign cloud alternative for European public institutions
- Establish a Public Digital Infrastructure Fund to finance a stack of open technologies
- Mobilizing new sources of funding for joint European investments
