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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
A group of technology companies and lobbyists want the European Commission (EC) to take action to reduce the region's reliance on foreign-owned digital services and infrastructure.
In an open letter to EC President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen, the group of nearly 100 organizations proposed the creation of a sovereign infrastructure fund to invest in key technology and lessen dependence on US corporations.
The letter points to recent events, including the farcical Munich Security Conference, as a sign of "the stark geopolitical reality Europe is now facing," and says that building strategic autonomy in key sectors is now an urgent imperative for European countries.
Signatories include aerospace giant Airbus, France's Dassault Systèmes, European cloud operator OVHcloud, chip designer SiPearl, open source biz Nextcloud, and a host of others including organizations such as the European Startup Network.
OVHcloud said the group was calling "for a collective industrial policy strategy to strengthen Europe's competitiveness and strategic autonomy. We are convinced this is the premise of what we hope will be a larger movement of the entire ecosystem."
Proposals include the sovereign infrastructure fund, which would be able to support public investment, especially in capital-intensive sectors like semiconductors, with "significant additional commitment of funds allocated and/or underwritten" by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and national public funding bodies.
It also suggests there should be a formal requirement for the public sector to "buy European" and source their IT requirements from European-led and assembled solutions, while recognizing that these may involve complex supply chains with foreign components.
[...] This isn't the first time that concerns about US hegemony in technology have been raised. Recently, the DARE project launched to develop hardware and software based on the open RISC-V architecture, backed by EuroHPC JU funding, while fears have been aired about the dominance of American-owned cloud companies in the European market.
Such concerns have been heightened by recent actions, such as the suggestion that the US might cut off access to Starlink internet services in Ukraine as a political bargaining strategy. Starlink owner Elon Musk later denied that this would ever happen.
The letter notes that these issues have already been set out by the EuroStack initiative, made up of many of the companies that signed the letter to EC President von der Leyen. The Register asked the European Commission to comment.
On the other side of the pond, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) recently published a report claiming that US companies face "substantial financial burdens" due to the European Union's digital regulations.
It says that US tech companies are losing "billions" through having to comply with regulations such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and having to obtain user consent for their data to be used for advertising purposes.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Saturday March 22 2025, @01:50PM (24 children)
Supply chains and operations can't be moved overnight, but when you're looking at four years or more of economic turmoil all of a sudden the financials, logistics, and effort of doing so look an awfully lot more viable. That process has definitely started and once those new routes are established it's going to take a huge amount of time and effort for the US to get them to moved back again, if they can do it at all. Once bitten, twice shy. It's going to be awfully hard for the US to recover if they need to pay top dollar to get former trading partners to sell them stuff again, or sell what they produce cheap to in order to get people to buy it.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday March 22 2025, @03:21PM (23 children)
Trump has done more for the unification of Europe in a couple of month than any statesmen has done since Napoleon.
No seriously this is all according to plan. Trump knows he can't drive a wedge between Russia, China and Iran but he also knows Europe can't depend on China for critical military-industrial infrastructure after they saw how easily China cut itself off the world markets during COVID and when they too know China is preparing for invasion against Taiwan. So, he's forcing Europe to overcome their internal bickering and get into military and industrial shape so they'll be able to at least deal with Moscow while also lessening their incentives to trade with China. And it's working: https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-friedrich-merz-radical-spending-election-berlin-green-energy-fund/ [politico.eu]
When the invasion starts around '26-'27 and the US diverts all its fleets to defend Taiwan, you'll be thanking Trump there's troops to defend the EU as Russia takes advantage to march on Poland.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday March 22 2025, @03:35PM (13 children)
We can no longer rely on the USA either. But you were pleased to sell us the aircraft, weapon systems and other equipment even though now you are refusing to allow it to be used without your express permission. We bought it but, in typical US fashion, we now don't appear to own it.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2025, @04:10PM (9 children)
Again, no time to research, and I'm not aware of this, but I admit it sounds unfair. I'd have to look at the balance sheet. IE, you may have paid something, but I'm very aware of how much $ we GIVE to EU and other countries.
Try really really hard to keep in the forefront of your thinking: Putin has nukes. Okay? Get it yet? You want to piss him off even more? Think, think.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday March 22 2025, @05:07PM (8 children)
So we should just surrender to him? The UK has nukes, France has nukes, YOU have nukes. But only one country has threatened to use them. Think, THINK!
I thought that we were supposed to be better than that. Backing down to bullies has never been our way. Don't worry, it will not be in your country. I expect to see either the white or Russian flag fly over the Whitehouse someday.
Paraphrasing what somebody said a short while back: "I would rather die fighting on my feet than being executed on my knees."
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Saturday March 22 2025, @08:59PM
Does Russian oligarchy display a flag on their possessions?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2025, @11:39PM (5 children)
You liberals are all angry knee-jerk reactionaries.
You are a "binary thinker". Learn about shades of grey; more than just two possibilities.
I really hate when people take a statement and try to refute it by stating something absurd, as if that was the original stater's intent. You just create arguments, flame wars, strife, and division. I think much more highly of you than that. Try to resist the low-brow ways.
Nobody said to surrender. The point is to not piss him off further. Trump tried to negotiate, tried to appease Putin. Obviously Putin isn't willing to be reasonable. Don't jump to conclusions. There are many possibilities. A big worry is, what will Putin do if enough countries aid Ukraine (as we all should) and Putin starts really losing bigtime? He's threatened nukes many times, so we all have to take it seriously.
Two old sayings of wisdom for you:
- Walk softly and carry a big stick.
- Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
BTW, how would you feel about USA joining the British Commonwealth? Hmmm?
:)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday March 23 2025, @05:04AM (3 children)
Lol - I am accused by some of being a liberal and, at the same time, by others of being a fascist who is supporting the right-wing. Neither of you is correct.
Putin announced in 2001 that he would restore Russia's influence and pride. We, the west, did not understand fully what he intended.
Since that time, he has explained further. He plans the complete return of Eastern Europe to Russia's sole area of influence. He has more recently rewritten the nuclear policy of Russia: If Russia believes that if its territory or people are threatened it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons as a first strike option. The problem is that Putin views the whole of Ukraine, the Baltic States, parts of Poland, Moldova, Georgia. various former republics and elsewhere as being "Russian". Some of those countries are now in NATO. If we surrender each time Putin threatens the use of theatre nuclear weapons in order to protect "Russians" then there will be no long term peace in Ukraine, Europe or elsewhere. Ukraine is not the end of it, but merely the start.
When the USA was threatened by Russian weapons being located in Cuba you did NOT surrender, but now you expect Europe to accept the same threats and just let Putin decide which countries are 'his'. But as this does not immediately affect the USA mainland Trump is prepared to throw the NATO defence agreement away just so that he can claim to be a peacemaker. Backing down is not a defence. Having a very clear line of what NATO will accept and what it will not is now vital again. Trump has already played his cards. It is too late to expect him to change his mind.
When you were at school you learned very quickly that if you give in to a bully you will never be free from his influence again. He will decide what you can do, and what you cannot do, and how you live some aspects of your life. Now is the time to stand up to a bully.
I served on a nuclear bomber crew. We knew what the role required of us. Our life expectancy was short once hostilities began. That is the decision that we all took when we agreed to serve. We also knew that the threat of our use helped maintain a peace of sorts. Putin has put the nuclear policy back 50 years or more. He is gambling on the West backing down. And a fair number of Americans are quite prepared to do so. That is why I say that we are being stabbed in the back. Not standing by Ukraine is like not fighting back against the bully. Ukraine NEEDS those security guarantees - which Russia has given before but now ignores. You only have to give in once and your future is decided. This is what NATO was designed for and when it comes to the test you are failing every one of those promises that you have made over the last 80 years.
Call me names - I learned to cope with that at school too. Try to pigeonhole my politics into something neat and tidy. You will not succeed in persuading me that we should go back to the Europe of the Cold War. I was part of it!
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday March 24 2025, @10:13PM (2 children)
I served on a nuclear bomber crew.
Vulcan?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 25 2025, @04:43AM (1 child)
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday March 25 2025, @09:11AM
Wow.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @12:35PM
Your previous post was not a call for grey thinking.
That last paragraph is a call for absolutes: cowardice and appeasement or making a principled but risky stand against evil. You want "shades of grey"? Then learn to speak in shades of grey.
Rather I think this reveals your line of thinking. The Ukrainian conflict isn't about making Putin mad or not. That's not how wars are won. Will we allow Russia to make a naked territorial grab or will we resist that? Ukraine has already decided to resist and they've been successful for three years.
Nobody is interested in merely pissing off Putin. There may at times be tactical advantage to making him mad - such as encouraging him to make bad decisions or distract his generals during critical stages of a battle. Or it might happen incidentally as a result of thwarting his plans for years. But not for its own sake.
I think rather it's important to consider who gratuitously makes people mad without a plan for winning. That would be Trump.
Bullshit. There's no way to successfully resist Putin without pissing him and his successors off. This FUD propaganda has gone on since the very beginning with Putin playing these brinkmanship games all along (following the usual Soviet playbook on that, I might add). Sorry, it already failed. And as janrinok noted, Russia isn't the only country with nukes. Probably shouldn't piss those other countries off either, right?
And should Putin actually use tactical nukes in Ukraine? It's a blank check for the allies supporting Ukraine. Trump would be forced to support the war for starters. NATO would soon control near Ukraine airspace. And if Putin escalates beyond that? Better hope his nuclear forces aren't just as shoddy as the rest of his military else it'll be a humiliating footnote in history for former Russia!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday March 24 2025, @03:10AM
And only one country *has* used them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Saturday March 22 2025, @07:01PM (2 children)
Nor should you.
You're barking at the wrong tree.
Regardless, from where I'm standing, the US been trying to get Europe to increase military spending in preparations for war with Russia since at least the 2008 Russo-Georgian War to no avail. And don't forget that the annexation of Crimea was back in 2014 should have jolted Europe into action without the US having to say anything. So, scaring Europe straight by starting to shop for new allies IS the only proved way to get the EU to get its act together before its too late.
Oh but you see, the EU did such a good job at convincing Biden that selling heavy guided bombs to Israel is a grave violation of international law, with it risking the lives of those innocent Gazans and all, that Trump, being the great humanitarian law abiding peace activist that he is, just couldn't look away from Ukraine's attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure and all those poor Russian children shaking in the dead of winter... Those heartless warmongering Europeans refusing Putin's ceasefire proposal just because it doesn't offer any security guarantees... Nazis I hear... /s
( The /s stands for schadenfreude. )
But seriously, whether Trump is a Manchurian candidate or just trying to scare you straight, Europe really needs to get a military and a military-industrial sector going before its too late for everyone's sake. And seeing how Putin's tanks aren't marching down Warsaw's main street quite just yet, it's very likely Trump cutting you off cold-turkey now is doing you a favor and you should be thanking him rather than criticizing him.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2025, @09:12PM (1 child)
Yeah, thanks Trump for pushing an old lady down the stairs.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday March 22 2025, @10:14PM
The old lady been stuck on the top floor since '08 since Georgia got invaded, through '14 when Crimea got annexed, '22 as Ukraine was re-invaded and '24 during North Korean troops joined in.
The bitch needs the kicking.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Saturday March 22 2025, @07:07PM (2 children)
I do agree that it's a good thing, and long past time, for western Europe to discard the US crutch (for both sides), but there are far better ways of achieving that than also breaking trade and other international relationships with what are starting to look very much like former allies and are now at best someone else with some shared goals and common foes. Trying to fix the European reliance on the US' military like this is like hacking your hand off to fix a hangnail; there is going to permanent economic damage to the US, and much stronger trading like between almost everyone else - China included, because Europe loves their cheap Chinese goods too.
If that's genuinely "the plan" (which I very much doubt), then it's not just the DEMs that should be standing up to him, it's the GOP too.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday March 22 2025, @07:58PM (1 child)
You just don't understand how late in the game this is:
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/01/china-suddenly-building-fleet-of-special-barges-suitable-for-taiwan-landings/ [navalnews.com]
https://apnews.com/article/mideast-tensions-iran-china-russia-naval-drills-b150bd7fa1336e52fbbf6fd4afd593de [apnews.com]
https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-iaea-weapons-grade-uranium-trump-0b11a99a7364f9a43e1c83b220114d45 [apnews.com]
There's simply not enough time for soft-gloves diplomacy anymore.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @12:39PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @06:05AM (5 children)
Your gullibility is endearing, but sorry, I won't partake. I don't buy that this is somehow a part of a Trump master plan. Having said that, I don't buy that China can do long game thinking any better than Trump can. Whatever happens in the future will have the usual fubar characteristics no matter who starts it.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday March 23 2025, @09:11AM (4 children)
It's not gullibility. I've heard Witkoff in the interview screwing everyone over by saying how rational Russia is and how Hamas isn’t ideologically intractable and how Tehran can be forced through sanctions to back off on its nuclear plans with and How Qatar and the Saudis only wants peace. I know the Republicans and Trump in particular get their money off the Golf. But, while we agree this is all bullshit and that the immediate outcomes will be worsening of US relations with its allies, I also see the US and UK are bombing the Houthis to open the navel trade routes to Europe while US military expenditure is ballooning in stark contrast to the last 20 years: https://quincyinst.org/research/the-fiscal-implications-of-a-major-increase-in-u-s-military-spending/ [quincyinst.org]
So, when I put 2 and 2 together, it comes off as the US readying for a huge engagement and working towards keeping its allies on edge and ready to defend themselves. As for what goes on in Trump's head, it could be hookers and blow for all I care. What matters is where the Pentagon's generals are steering he ship. Not the team's mascot.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @01:11PM (3 children)
For those who don't magically know who Steve Witkoff [wikipedia.org] is, he's involved in unilateral negotiations between the US and Russia. Witkoff also chose to recognize [pravda.com.ua] the sham referendums in occupied Russian territory and a feeble Russian pretext for the war.
Sorry, I don't buy that the US has some clever plan here. But it does look like Trump is beholden to Putin for some reason.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday March 23 2025, @04:57PM (2 children)
No no this isn't your typical throwing-more-money-on-defense. Total spending actually went down. This is about $50 billion worth of re-prioritizing on modernization R&D and China: https://defensescoop.com/2025/03/17/congress-defense-appropriations-2025-rdte-spending-141b/ [defensescoop.com]
Where the ballooning is coming from is venture capital investments tripling due to the focus on modernization: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/05/defense-industrial-base-reagan-study-factories [axios.com]
And it's not downsizing personal either. There's actually an increase in recruitment: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/military-officials-recruiting-off-strong-start-2025-building/story?id=119762980 [go.com]
Witkoff is just following some real estate sales pitch manual 1:1. Sit through his recent Carlson interview while trying to not to barf. Once you're pass the critical threshold of disgust, you'll realize he's going through a bullet list type thing whenever he approaches a negotiation similar to one of these: https://convin.ai/blog/best-sales-pitch [convin.ai]
He's just telling his customers what they want to hear at the political level to get them to the negotiations table: The Israelis want security assurances as well as knowing the US has their back. Qatar wants to be thought of as trustworthy peace negotiators. Russia wants for its casus belli to be recognized. Hamas wants not to be treated like pariahs and that they'll be able to stay around when the war is over... But, in the end, the US has hard requirements and they're completely divorced from anything the marketing material says.
Regardless of the visuals, it's in Europe's and the US's best interest to end the war as quickly as possible regardless of how much territories Russia holds right now and focus on an arms race towards automation and nuclear missile interception. Cause, right now, China is speed running RISK while Europe is squabbling over who will put the down-payment for the carbon credits covering the deforestation required to put together artillery shells... Yes this really happened just a few weeks ago.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @11:18PM (1 child)
Not for FY (Fiscal Year) 2025 which is slightly higher than FY2024. Maybe for FY2026.
Depends on what "as possible" means. Too much urgency and you'll get a bad deal from Russia, right? Meanwhile I think we need to encourage more China top-down investing. That's an excellent way to squander Chinese resources. Even Japan's MITI couldn't pull it off after they got past the catching up phase - they were more competent.
They'll need the EU and Ukraine to come to the negotiations table too. In the end, everyone has hard requirements. And sometimes in war you can't meet those hard requirements with negotiation - especially when you leave out critical parties. I'm not interested in the wheeler dealer when the basics aren't being met. Also, visuals are an important part of negotiation.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday March 24 2025, @10:19AM
From my first link:
( https://defensescoop.com/2025/03/17/congress-defense-appropriations-2025-rdte-spending-141b/ [defensescoop.com] )
It would have been too urgent in 2014. Now it's too late. Again, 26'-27'...
It's better for the EU's and Ukraine's public and politics to think the US isn't on their side and it's being forced on them so they won't resist the increased spending and military drafts in the coming years.
Look, we're back to WW1 era secret pacts and alliances. Things aren't going to be done transparently anymore.
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