SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday March 22 2025, @03:19PM (15 children)
The USA wanted Europe to buy their military equipment. Now that we have done so the support is being withdrawn unless we bow down and profusely give thanks to your new master.
The USA wanted to fight on someone else's territory. Now they say that we are just taking things because we let them have hundreds of installations in Europe. Don't you also have numerous bases in the Middle East, the Far East, and the Pacific arena? Are they all 'sucking off your teats" too. Or perhaps you have overstretched yourself and need an excuse to reduce your forces?
The USA wanted to have all the top posts in NATO, indeed they insisted upon it. Now your leader is compromising our secrets (Mar-a-Lago files anyone? The UK and at least one other NATO country have been affected) and doing their best to de-fang NATO's ability to function as a defensive force.
The USA has agreed to all the existing trade agreements and they were quite content with them until Trump came along. Nobody forced them upon the USA. Now those same agreements are all Europe's doing and we are supposedly taking advantage of the USA? Why did you agree to them?
The USA has, for around 80 years, been claiming to lead the fight against dictators and globalist expansion by force. Now it seems that claiming other countries' territory (Canada, Greenland etc) is justified because it gives the USA control of the rare earths and other valuable minerals, or it is suddenly essential to the defence of the USA itself?
Now that the USA has suddenly turned about face and become the best friend of the biggest threat facing Europe how is that our fault?
The USA wants us to support their businesses in Europe but they are not prepared to follow our rules when we allow them to operate here yet pay negligible taxes. Hence this story.
Everyday we see reports of the wilful destruction of US Federal functions with NO realistic justification being given whatsoever to those people who are most affected. Your legal system is being repeatedly ignored by those in power. The USA has become a Dictatorship. There is no point in waiting for the next election - there will not be one. Everything that is happening is described in Project2025 and, perhaps more importantly, in the classified Manual of Revolutionary Warfare. It was never expected that you would use those lessons and techniques on yourself.
So you have quite some way to go to convince us that what we are now seeing is entirely altruistic and for our own good. Your claims don't require close scrutiny to counter them, they are bullshit and everyone can see it. We are being stabbed in the back and we will NOT forget it.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2025, @04:06PM (6 children)
I don't have time to refute you, but you're very one-sided. I only wish we (USA) had NOT helped you in WWI or 1940s. The $ and lives we lost, and what we get in return, smug arrogant one-sided mocking? So Trump is finally trying to even things up, and instead of looking at everything and being gracious, you're acting like a little child who got caught doing something bad but is 100% ego-driven, rude, smug, arrogant, flippant. You're just making more and more of us (USA) happy to stop helping you.
On a more positive note, I'm encouraged to see much of Europe recognizing the need to strengthen your own military and defense against, well, mainly Putin.
The credit card is maxxed out, time to start paying down the debt.
(I'll let out a little secret- in spite of your horrible attitudes, we (USA) will come to your aid, again, if things get bad enough. But we might wait it out a bit first.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday March 22 2025, @04:40PM
That's what we in Canada say when talking about how Trump treats all his 'enemies' as he takes revenge. He is a CHILD and only knows how to hit back at his perceived enemies.
Remember when he was going to lower the price of eggs? On day one, he was going to do that.
Instead, all he has done is throw tantrums and hit back at his 'enemies'. He is paranoid, he is a liar, he is an adulterer and a failed businessman.
He is a loser. A hugely, biggly American loser.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday March 22 2025, @04:54PM
US losses were about 250,000 about (0.17% of the US population in 1945) killed in the European theater.
European losses were:
I haven't include figures for the Baltic states, Finland, Norway or Sweden. I think the point is made.
We are grateful for your involvement. The French village in which I now live has a special day to remember being freed by US forces. It has 3 different monuments to US dead, a wreath is placed at each one. The ceremonies are well attended and school children also participate. You contribution is not forgotten.
Your participation enabled a 2nd front to be established in order to divide Germany's forces between the western front and the eastern front. But you seem to be ignoring the European losses. Perhaps you think Europe was sat around doing nothing until the US got involved.
You lost far more though in the Pacific arena, but the UK and others also fought in the Far East providing land, air and sea forces.
Since that we have as Europeans supported wars alongside you in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Balkans, and many other places. I had both UK and US military forces under my administrative command in Bosnia. Yesterday, on FlightRadar24, I watched US, UK, Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia flying air missions in support of each other in the Baltic and Black Sea regions.
The US has a habit of mocking France - yet they lost almost 10 times the number of losses you experienced in the whole of Europe. Poland lost 100 times your losses. We are stronger united - but that lesson is quickly being forgotten.
Being thrown to the mercy of Russia doesn't impress us at all. Trump should get his Nobel Peace Prize by doing something to justify it.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Saturday March 22 2025, @06:28PM
> The $ and lives we lost, and what we get in return, smug arrogant one-sided mocking?
I am grateful for the alliance with USA, both during the 20th century and into the 21st century. NATO is a good thing.
Having said that, US joined the war after they were attacked by the Axis powers (Pearl Harbour); the declaration of war was not an act of altruism. I realise they provided indirect support particularly to Britain before that point. I also realise that the US presence in the European theatre was not strictly necessary, but I believe that there were strong strategic reasons for supporting the European war directly given the war in the Pacific.
It's worth also pointing out that US did quite well economically during, and following WW2. One might argue that this would have occurred regardless of the outcome of the war. It's also worth noting there was a recession in the year or two following the end of WW2.
Economics don't replace lives lost of course. And I want to reiterate that Europeans are grateful for the alliance with USA. It's an important message that both sides must remember: together we are stronger.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2025, @12:14AM
I wish we (the rest of usa), never had to hear from jackasses like you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @05:59AM (1 child)
Just because someone else - not you - fought and died for Europe doesn't mean you have a blank check for everyone else to put up with your bullshit.
Back at you on that one. Don't waste our time with imaginary tales of what Trump allegedly is "trying". Trump is a con artist and walking dumpster fire. Always has been.
I was willing to put up with him because DOGE sounds like it might go somewhere. In a few months, I've been proven very wrong. For me the line was crossed when Trump started mouthing off about impeaching judges doing their jobs (which happened to be blocking some illegal Trump administration actions). Actually carrying that impeachment out would be breaking the law on top of breaking the law. Not "working overtime to restore the rule of law" [thespectator.com]. Don't piss on me and call it rain.
Look, you can continue to believe whatever you want, but you've been had.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2025, @09:59AM
I wonder whether the current/near future USA would qualify for regime change by the USA's own standards for other countries... Ignoring the fact that the USA has tons of nukes which would of course disqualify it.
I mean:
1) Has oil
2) Sponsors and creates terrorists
🤣
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday March 22 2025, @04:32PM (7 children)
I actually think USA foreign policy is quite sensible. Russia and China together is a far bigger threat than each acting separately. I think the creation of the axis of North Korea, China, Iran, Russia was a huge mistake of Biden/Boris Johnson. It is a good idea to break that axis. There is a tight rope to walk to bring Russia back to the West (since 1990s when they were allied), and I think it is essential we do it.
Not sure that is Trump's planning - he seems not to be very strategic and a bit more haphazard/disorganised. But it's what I would do.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by number11 on Sunday March 23 2025, @04:37AM (6 children)
I doubt that Iran is part of any axis, other than those who will trade with them. The US is blocking trade, so what sources of foreign income do they have? Note that Iran does not recognize Russia's claims to Ukranian territory even now. They're just selling stuff to whoever will buy it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @06:01AM (3 children)
Which happens to be Russia and China. I sense a pattern here. Also keep in mind that we still don't have a clear idea of why Iran's proxies started a war with Israel last year. It might have been at the behest of Russia.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Sunday March 23 2025, @05:27PM (2 children)
Yes, Russia and China have become their trade partners. I suspect that the fact that the US bans commerce with Iran even by other countries may have something to do with that. What countries would you expect them to trade with, if the US (and because of US pressure, Europe) won't trade with them?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 23 2025, @10:55PM (1 child)
The worst of the lot is who I'd expect them to trade with. And well, it's not a stretch to group them at that point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by number11 on Monday March 24 2025, @06:14PM
It's not like the US doesn't trade with Russia and China as well. And making threats toward Canada, Denmark, and Mexico. Yeah, the Iranian theocracy is scum, just like the Saudi one. But the Iranian theocracy came about because the US propped up the Shah and his secret police. No point pretending anybody has clean hands in this show.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday March 23 2025, @09:53AM (1 child)
> The US is blocking trade, so what sources of foreign income do they have?
Your comment exactly supports my point! Economics and military strategy are bedfellows - for example the reason, historically, US supported Europe is because US and Europe are strong trade partners.
ps: I guess one might argue that this is only a "trade relationship", but Iran has been supplying Russia with arms to prosecute the invasion of Ukraine:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/25/politics/us-russia-iran-drones/index.html [cnn.com]
(with many other hits from a search engine)
(Score: 2) by number11 on Sunday March 23 2025, @05:17PM
Sure Iran has been supplying arms to Russia (I heard that Russia pays in gold). They'd probably sell arms to Ukraine, too, if the money was right. Does the fact that the US sells (or gives) arms to Israel necessarily mean that the US is pro-genocide?