In January, the US president threatened to impose punitive tariffs on eight European countries that supported Denmark in the Greenland matter from February 1. Although he soon withdrew these threats, a debate broke out in the EU about the European repercussions on American interests in the EU, including big tech.
The German daily “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reported then that the EU was considering raising taxes on American technology companies such as Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, limiting their investments or excluding them from public tenders.
The intervention in Iran also causes distance towards the US. And this trend may increase as European societies increasingly feel the effects of this conflict.
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The EU's possibilities to respond to Trump's escalation of the dispute in the future were also discussed at the January informal extraordinary European Council, i.e. the summit of the leaders of the EU countries.
The experts we talk to indicate that even if Brussels does not decide to take retaliatory actions in the near future, including against big tech, their current monopoly on the EU market will crumble over time.
— The European Union is striving for technological sovereignty. There is no turning back from this path – says Jan Jęcz from Polityka Insight in an interview with Business Insider Polska.
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Today, big tech in Europe has an El Dorado
What is the share of American big tech in the EU market and what are their profits from it? An expert from the Instrat foundation, Jarosław Kopeć, replies: – The report by Jan Oleszczuk-Zygmuntowski issued by the Łukasiewicz Research Network indicates that the value of import of digital goods to Europe from the USA in 2024 amounted to approximately EUR 459 billion.
In terms of market share, it is slightly different for each sector of the digital economy. — We're definitely watching monopoly of an American company in the area of internet search engines (Google)another monopoly in social networking sites (Meta) and the oligopoly of American entities in cloud solutions services (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) – mentions Jarosław Kopeć.
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At the same time, it states that there are many sectors of the digital economy in which non-European entities have almost no significant share. – Single exceptions include the music streaming services market, where Spotify is the leader, although it should be noted that American funds hold a very strong position in its shareholding – emphasizes the Instrat expert.
How to achieve EU technological sovereignty?
Jarosław Kopeć tells Business Insider Polska that American big tech companies are already feeling the effects of the cooling of European-American relations. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that they are trying to locate data centers in Europe in order to somehow respond to the growing concern for digital sovereignty in the EU.
However, according to the Instrat expert, this is only the case the beginning of their problems. — American technology corporations clearly stand shoulder to shoulder with the American president. Every threat he makes to impose additional tariffs on European goods, every threat to the territorial integrity of European countries and every threat from American diplomacy is an additional incentive for distrust, he argues.
And he emphasizes: – Europe wants to have less and less to do with American big tech and will be more willing to develop technologies at home, as well as strictly enforce the law that regulates their presence in Europe.
As Katarzyna Szymielewicz, president of the Panoptykon foundation, notes in this context, the European Commission is slowly and carefully, even too slowly and carefully, completing the first investigations into violations of DSA, i.e. the EU Digital Services Act. — We have the first penalties for Elon Musk and his historic reaction to them. The media is full of information about new functionalities on platforms that are intended to help parents secure their children's accounts, or to exclude the worst AI slop from the feed, he enumerates.
—The problem is, it's a smokescreen. Without changing the logic of the profit-oriented algorithm, we are still just a commodity for the platforms, emphasizes Katarzyna Szymielewicz.
When can we count on limiting the omnipotence of giants?
Jan Jęcz, digital economy analyst at the Polityka Insight analytical center, tells Business Insider Polska that in In the short term, it is impossible for the EU to become independent from the monopoly of big techbut in the long run yes.
There are two reasons, he says. — The EU will increasingly strive to become independent from the US, and in addition, the pursuit of technological sovereignty will be the driving force behind the development of the European technology industry, which is the EU's political goal. This requires demand for such services from European enterprises and the public sector, points out Jan Jęcz.
In the longer term, he says, we will therefore, for example, observe moving to European cloud services. — Today, European companies offering cloud solutions are not ready to fully compete with US entities. However, this will change, explains Jan Jęcz.
He adds that the next EU financial perspective, i.e. the EU budget for 2028-2034, will be crucial for this process. — It provides for large funds for the development of digital sovereignty from sources such as the newly created competitiveness fund or the fund for strengthening democracy, says Jęcz.
And he sums up: – By the end of this decade, the EU's achievement of technological sovereignty will already be in full swing. This is especially true since the planned review of the Road to a Digital Decade program aims to increase the importance of activities for European technological sovereignty in the 2030 perspective. This program may therefore also become the driving force behind this trend.
The Polityka Insight expert also points out that a signal of changes is also the report on digital sovereignty voted by the European Parliament in January, which was worked on by, among others, Polish 2050 MEP Michał Kobosko. – This report is written in a very bold tone – it gives priority to European technologies in public procurement, and also supports public investments in technological sovereignty – comments Jęcz.
Katarzyna Szymielewicz speaks in a similar tone. — Just as militarily the EU has no choice but to engage in defending its own borders, on the technological front it must invest in building an independent infrastructure and breaking the dominance of a few companies in social media. After all, the same war is being waged in the cognitive sphere — using propaganda, disinformation, polarization, he says.
— Ideas are circulating in Europe to invest in sovereign, public digital infrastructure. And this is a great idea, provided we don't rush into building our own European Facebook, he adds.
According to Szymielewicz The upcoming revision of the DMA next year will also be an opportunity for the EU to act on this matteri.e. the Digital Markets Act regulating big tech. — The EU can force large social media platforms to open gates thanks to which their users could communicate with competing platforms and even use competitive algorithms to recommend content, says the head of Panoptykon.
— Thanks to interoperability, we wouldn't have to flee X or Facebook in protest. We could stay, but we could freely chat with friends on other platforms and watch the content they post publicly. We could choose the algorithm according to which all this is served to us. This is the principle of operation of BlueSky, a platform that already has over 33 million users – describes Katarzyna Szymielewicz.
And he emphasizes: – Even if the largest players do not give up on aggressive monetization of our attention, there will be competition: algorithms moderating and recommending content, “curatorial” services from our trusted media, journalists, social organizations.
Katarzyna Szymielewicz argues that in the world of algorithms there are no limits to human fantasy. – This technology is very flexible, only commercial platforms have for years imposed on us one way of using social media: artificially stimulated engagement that favors the display of advertisements – he concludes.
What would the introduction of a digital tax in the European Union bring?
A tool to limit the power of big tech would be the introduction of a digital services tax at the European Union level. Today, individual EU countries, including France, have such taxes.
According to Jarosław Kopiec, the EU digital tax is a very good idea. “Digital services are often provided over long distances, and most of the investment, research and development spending, and taxation falls on the place where the service is produced (e.g., China or the US), not where it is consumed,” he argues.
In his opinion, imposing a digital tax in the European Union, while enabling the deduction of CIT from this national tax, would allow equal opportunities for entities on the European market.
— It could also encourage non-EU companies to locate a greater part of their operations within the Community. The tax-related requirement for detailed activity reporting would also allow the EU to have greater insight into the operations of tech giants, including their impact on individual markets. The tax revenues could, in turn, be used to limit the negative consequences of the operation of technological platforms or to develop European technological sovereignty (the so-called Eurostack), emphasizes Jarosław Kopeć.
In Poland, work on the digital tax is carried out by the Ministry of Digitization. — It is good that the Polish government continues to work on imposing a digital tax in the country. I hope that Poland will be another example for the entire Community and will make it reconsider imposing a tax at the EU level, says Jarosław Kopeć.
However, considering the submissiveness of the Polish political class towards big tech, it is difficult to expect success in introducing a digital tax on the Vistula River. Moreover, even if the Sejm voted for such a solution, it would most likely be vetoed by President Karol Nawrocki. As it did in the case of the act implementing the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) into the Polish legal order, which regulates platforms to increase internet security, fight disinformation and illegal content.
Realistically, only a possible EU digital tax could be introduced in Poland. An opportunity to debate this issue is the ongoing work on the EU budget for 2028-2034. However, at the current stage, such a decision at the EU level is unlikely.
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Poland is the weakest link in attempts to mitigate the hegemony of big tech
How effective are the EU's attempts to regulate big tech, considering Karol Nawrocki's veto of the bill implementing DSA? Katarzyna Szymielewicz, president of the Panoptykon foundation, admits that “the presidential veto has turned us into a corner in Poland.” – But this does not mean that nothing is happening in the EU – he argues.
Jan Jęcz, on the other hand, confirms that Poland is certainly very cautious in its approach to the EU's pursuit of increasing technological sovereignty. — However, due to this caution, Poland may lose to the German-French tandem that is driving this process – warns.
— We may therefore miss an important pro-development EU trend due to excessive conservativeness caused by the US' reluctance to expose itself. It would be advisable for the country to become more involved in activities aimed at developing the EU's digital sovereignty – especially since we have the potential – great staff and a strong economy, which is entering the G20 – concludes the Polityka Insight analyst.
