Plenary session

Name: Plenary session
Uploaded: 2026-06-16T07:00:00+00:00
Duration: 1498 s

14:38 - 15:46

Speaker 1

La séance est ouverte et l'ordre du jour appelle la déclaration de la Commission : garantir la souveraineté et la résilience numérique de l'Europe à la lumière des évolutions récentes touchant l'accès aux technologies d'IA avancées. Je tiens à rappeler aux intervenants que compte tenu des mesures de test actuellement en place et de l'heure impérative de fin du débat, 10h15 pour notre débat, il sera nécessaire de respecter strictement le temps de parole et je serai particulièrement strict et vigilant.

Pour commencer notre discussion, j'ai le plaisir de donner la parole à la vice-présidente exécutive Virkkunen Henna, je vous souhaite la bienvenue et je vous donne la parole immédiatement.

15:46 - 21:21

Speaker 2

Honorable President, honorable members, on the 12th of June the European Commission adopted a technological sovereignty package. This is a crucial step for Europe. We are positioning ourselves for the future of digital technologies and addressing our strategic dependencies. Europe needs to be in the position to make its own choices, avoiding dependence on single dominant suppliers. Because we live in the world where geopolitics and technology go hand in hand.

Those who lead technological innovation will shape the future. We must ensure that Europe plays the leading role. The recent US export control directive on Anthropic's most advanced AI models is a case in point. We are seeing a new generation of highly capable AI models reach the market. These models offer significant benefits, including for cyber defense.

But they also raise serious cybersecurity concerns that need to be addressed. And this is not only about single jurisdiction or single company. It's a shared challenge. We believe that contingency measures taken in this light should not be discriminatory against partners. With our tech sovereignty package, we are taking concrete steps to address such challenges.

The package has three main objectives: to transform our economy by driving the adoption of new technologies and AI in Europe, to reinforce the resilience of our supply chains, and to promote the European way for tech sovereignty. And the package is designed to deliver through four key elements. First, the Chips Act 2.0 that builds on the success of European Chips Act. It includes a set of demand-side measures to stimulate the uptake of chips made in Europe, bringing chip manufacturers closer to growth sectors like AI, cloud services, and data centers. It also reinforces the European supply side capabilities across the entire value chain, including through strategic projects with strong EU added value focusing on advanced manufacturing, design, and packaging.

And also following the AI Continent Action Plan, the Cloud and AI Development Act turns the vision of tripling Europe's data center capacity within the next five to seven years into reality, and doing so in a sustainable manner. Very importantly, the act also encourages tech sovereignty of our public sector. It established clear criteria for sovereign cloud and also strengthens support for the development of AI services, notably EU frontier models, while using its buying power to boost EU security and resilience. And here the Commission's own internal digital sovereignty action plan is paving the way. From migrating our core IT systems to EU-based cloud infrastructure to deploying sovereign AI tools in our daily operations, we are proving that strategic autonomy is not just an aspiration, it's a very concrete action.

In all of this, I want to underline that technological sovereignty does not mean isolation, or it doesn't mean protectionism. It's about making Europe stronger, more resilient, and less exposed to critical dependencies. We will remain open to trade, investment and cooperation with trusted partners. But Europe must also be able to develop, deploy and protect the technologies that our economy, public services and security depend on. Honorable members, two more points before I conclude.

Firstly, our technological sovereignty package takes its climate and environment footprint very seriously. Europe's structurally higher energy costs, they are a genuine competitive constraint, particularly for technologies that consume power at scale. And this is precisely why the package also includes the strategic roadmap for digitalization and AI in energy. And secondly, technological sovereignty also requires investments. Other tech-leading countries have invested massively, while Europe continues to suffer from a huge gap in equity and high-risk financing to tech.

And this is a clear market failure to address, especially for large-scale ventures and scale-ups. Just for the initiatives of this package, the total investment needs are estimated up to 450 billion euros in the next 10 years. And we know that public funding is very crucial, but it will be in no way sufficient to bridge such a big investment gap. So we need ways to crowd in large amounts of private investments. The reform of the EU's capital markets under the Savings and Investment Union will improve how the EU's financial system channels savings to productive investments.

21:21 - 21:54

Henna Virkkunen

At the same time, the Commission is launching now a consultation with our member states and with the European Investment Bank Group and other key stakeholders on the idea of setting up a European equity capacity. In other words, we aim to create a mechanism managing a portfolio of equity investments in advanced technologies and infrastructure that are critical for our economic security, such as digital, but also clean energy and biotechnologies. And this can be a true game changer for Europe and I count on your support.

21:54 - 22:02

Younous Omarjee

Merci beaucoup, Madame la Vice-Présidente. Ana Miguel Pedro.

22:02 - 24:17

Ana Miguel Pedro

Senhora Comissária, uma decisão tomada fora da União Europeia foi suficiente para pôr em causa o acesso de empresas, investigadores, administrações públicas e aliados a modelos avançados de inteligência artificial. Estamos a falar da tecnologia que começa a suportar cibersegurança, investigação científica, serviços públicos, indústria, energia, saúde e defesa. É uma questão estratégica, geopolítica e de segurança. E a pergunta que temos de fazer é se pode a Europa aceitar que o acesso às capacidades críticas do século XXI dependa de uma autorização política de terceiros. Pode uma pequena e média empresa europeia que integrou modelos avançados de inteligência artificial nos seus processos, descobrir de um dia para o outro que deixou de ter acesso à tecnologia de que depende?

Pode uma administração pública construir serviços essenciais sobre sistemas que podem ser limitados, suspensos ou condicionados por interesses estratégicos externos? Pode a Europa ambicionar liderar a transição digital se não controla as infraestruturas, os modelos, os dados, a capacidade computacional e a cadeia de valor que tornam essa transição possível? A resposta tem de ser não. Temos regras, temos valores, mas a Europa não pode ser uma potência regulatória com dependência tecnológica crítica. Não basta dizer ao mundo como uma inteligência artificial deve ser governada, temos de ter capacidade para a desenvolver, alojar, auditar, proteger e disponibilizar em solo europeu, sob jurisdição europeia e com infraestruturas europeias.

Não basta sermos fortes na norma se formos fracos na capacidade. Por isso, senhora comissária, o pacote soberania tecnológica apresentado pela Comissão é bem-vindo. A Europa tem de produzir mais semicondutores, ter mais centros de dados, mais supercomputadores, mais cloud europeia e maior capacidade para treinar os seus próprios modelos de inteligência artificial. Uma dependência tolerável em tempos normais pode tornar-se uma vulnerabilidade grave em tempos de crise. A Europa aprendeu com a energia que a dependência estratégica tem custos, custos económicos, custos políticos, custos de segurança.

Não podemos repetir o mesmo erro na inteligência artificial.

24:17 - 24:22

Younous Omarjee

Merci beaucoup, Alex Agius Saliba.

24:22 - 24:55

Alex Agius Saliba

Is there anyone left that believes that Europe can put its economy in the hands of Donald Trump and his big tech oligarchs? We have seen what happened to the international court judges being cut off from essential digital services because of sanctions. Just try to imagine living without Microsoft, Mastercard and other American technology. Good luck, but you can't. And therefore Europe cannot ignore its tech dependency.

A kill switch to turn off technology is not only a risk today, but it is a reality.