EuroStack

Last updated
EuroStack
Stack demo.png
Stack Structure
ProductsDigital Infrastructure
LocationFlag of Europe.svg EU
FounderSebastiano Toffaletti, Cristina Caffarra
Key people Francesca Bria, Cecilia Rikap, Andrea Renda
Established2024 (2024)
Statusproposal
WebsiteMultiple initiatives: www.euro-stack.info www.eurostack.eu

EuroStack is a set of initiatives of academics, politicians, commentators and industry players aimed at building an independent European digital infrastructure to limit the dependence of the European Union on foreign technology and US companies. [1] [2]

Contents

Background

The term "EuroStack" was coined by Glen Weyl in 2024. [3] [4] [5] Initial advocates for EuroStack shared that 80% of European technology is imported, which creates a dependency on US and Chinese technology. Bria and Timmers's version of the initiative calls to mobilize €300 billion over 10 years to invest in European technological independence. [2] Advocates of EuroStack have repeatedly referred to the risk of the EU becoming a digital colony. [6]

Datacenter at a European university (Ecole Polytechnique) Datacenter informatique de l'Ecole Polytechnique (33231397631).jpg
Datacenter at a European university (Ecole Polytechnique)

Cecilia Rikap and Aline Blankertz warned against the protectionism undertone of the initiative to break away from US tech dependency. Rikap and Blankertz recognize the threat to democracy that the dependency on US tech represents. They argue for a measured approach of investing in core technologies, in particular cloud services, instead of writing large checks to subsidize aspirational national champions. European public procurement, would be one important strand in a EuroStack strategy according to the two economists. [7]

History

The EuroStack discussion was initiated in September 2024 at a conference organized by Cristina Caffarra, Francesca Bria and Meredith Whittaker and hosted by the European Parliament in Brussels.

On January 10, 2025, a group of industry experts including Caffarra published the first “EuroStack” pitch, arguing a case for the initiative. [8] Over 80 organisations signed the letter. [9] [10]

In February 2025, a group of academics, jointly with the Bertelsmann Stiftung and CEPS launched a separate initiative. The academics group included Francesca Bria and Paul Timmers. In June 2025, their proposal received the support of the European Parliament's ITRE Committee. [6] In their commentary in Foreign Policy around the same time, Francesca Bria and Haroon Sheikh presented the EuroStack as Europe's last chance to preserve its sovereignty in the digital age. [11]

In 2025, Sebastiano Toffaletti and Cristina Caffarra, a former paid advisor of Tik Tok's parent company ByteDance, [12] [13] began legal proceedings over the right to use the name EuroStack. This is important because one of the stated objectives of Eurostack is to reduce dependence on both the US and China. [14] Toffaletti filed a claim first with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, that Caffarra contested on the grounds that "Toffaletti could not apply for the trademark as the Eurostack term is already "used in the course of trade". [15] Caffarra was initially associated with the public initiative together with Francesca Bria. The spat between Caffarra and other participants led to confusion among commentators as to which initiative is rightly referred to as EuroStack.

See also

References

  1. Bria, Francesca; Timmers, Paul; Fausto, Gernone; Renda, Andrea Christopher Fischer /; Grabova, Olesya (13 February 2025). "EuroStack – A European alternative for digital sovereignty". CEPS. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  2. 1 2 Volpicelli, Gian (15 January 2025). "EU Seeks Digital Independence With EuroStack: Tech In Depth" . Bloomberg. Retrieved 30 July 2025. In and around Brussels, the European Union's capital, a growing coalition of entrepreneurs, economists, thinkers, policymakers and assorted gadflies is bandying about the term "EuroStack" to label the effort for the bloc to build its own digital infrastructure and ease its dependence on US Big Tech.
  3. Mangold, Philipp (2025-09-03). "Wie rettet Europa seine digitale Souveränität?". Die Tageszeitung: taz (in German). ISSN   0931-9085 . Retrieved 2025-09-03.
  4. "TOWARD EUROPEAN DIGITAL INDEPENDENCE: BUILDING THE EURO STACK – THE INTERNET OF THINGS". 2024-09-24. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
  5. Geese, Alexandra (8 June 2025). "Success on the road to technological independence from Musk, Meta & Microsoft" . Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  6. 1 2 Kobosko, Michal (30 July 2025). "Op-ed: A European recipe for tech sovereignty". The Parliament Magazine. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  7. "Demokratisch kontrollierte Alternativen gegen technologische Abhängigkeit" [Democratically controlled alternatives to technological dependence]. TagesSpiegel (in German). 18 March 2025. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  8. "EU Tech Advocates Call for Greater Self-Reliance With EuroStack". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 2025-01-15. Retrieved 2025-09-04.
  9. ""Buy European" to boost tech industry - EuroStack group". The Stack. 2025-03-17. Retrieved 2025-09-04.
  10. Toffaletti, Sebastiano (2025-03-17). "European industry demands Eurostack to power EU competitiveness". European DIGITAL SME Alliance. Retrieved 2025-09-04.
  11. Bria, Francesca; Sheikh, Haroon (31 March 2025). "Europe Must Avoid Becoming a Digital Colony". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  12. Senator Cotton (31 January 2024), BIG TECH AND THE ONLINE CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION CRISIS, HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, DC: UNITED STATES SENATE
  13. Kaminsky, Gabe (13 July 2023). "Biden FTC adviser previously worked for TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance". Washington Examiner. Retrieved 14 October 2025.
  14. Akkoc, Raziye (14 April 2025). "European Union gets serious as bloc seeks independence from U.S. tech such as Uber, Apple and Mastercard". Fortune. Retrieved 14 October 2025.
  15. Hartmann, Théophane (21 May 2025). "Eurostack founders clash over who owns rights to EU sovereignty trademark". Euractiv. Retrieved 30 July 2025.