The Origin, Objectives, and Challenges of the European Union’s Concept of Digital Sovereignty

Abstract

Against the backdrop of intense strategic competition between China and the United States and the profound restructuring of global digital governance, the European Union (EU) has proposed the concept of “digital sovereignty” to seize strategic initiative and safeguard its core interests. The EU’s digital sovereignty emerged from a position of relative digital incapacity, manifesting strategic anxiety under the dual pressure of two technological superpowers, as well as internal digital fragmentation. At its core, it emphasizes a trinity of technological autonomy, data autonomy, and institutional autonomy. Guided by this vision, the EU has developed a multi-layered strategy that integrates internal and external policies across multiple institutional circles. This includes a “digital single market” strategy as the inner core, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Gaia-X project as pioneering regulatory instruments in the middle circle, and the European Chips Act and Artificial Intelligence Act as specialized initiatives on the outer edge. However, the construction of EU digital sovereignty faces severe domestic coordination hurdles due to the internal “digital divide” among member states, alongside a strategic dilemma of “de-dependence vs. re-dependence” under US-China competition. Ultimately, the EU’s endeavors represent a novel attempt at building sovereignty in the digital era by a regional integration organization, offering critical insights and points of reference for global digital governance and China’s own digital sovereignty strategies.