Pillar II – Policy and Funding

Objective: Establish the political and financial framework necessary for European digital autonomy.

Primary Audience: EU policymakers, national governments, regulatory bodies, public funders, and political stakeholders.

Resource Requirements: Policy analysts, legal experts, economists, public sector strategists, and funding program designers.

Key Activities:

  • Advocate for an EU-level Digital Sovereignty Fund with stable, GDP-based financing
  • Develop fair digital service taxation to rechannel revenue from dominant global players to European infrastructure
  • Support public-interest foundation models with democratic oversight
  • Promote institutional licensing of European digital services in education, administration, and municipalities
  • Enable B2B market services that reinvest profits into open-source development and local innovation ecosystems
  • Align national and EU-level strategies to reinforce long-term autonomy goals

Value Proposition: Policy and funding define the conditions under which innovation and adoption can thrive. This pillar ensures that digital sovereignty is not just a societal aspiration but a politically viable and economically sustainable strategy. It empowers decision-makers to support European digital services as a matter of principle and competitiveness — not just risk mitigation. The political momentum created here also enables grassroots initiatives and engagement efforts to scale effectively, and lays the groundwork for ecosystem growth.

Differentiated Funding Models:

The initiative recognizes that different digital services require different funding models:

  • Nonprofit and Community-Funded Services: Email services, basic storage, and social media platforms should operate on a nonprofit basis as they have become essential services with significant societal impact.
    • Email services require protection from commercial exploitation of private communications
    • Social media platforms need to prioritize healthy discourse over engagement maximization, avoiding the profit-driven algorithms that lead to polarization, echo chambers, and misinformation
  • Market-Oriented Services with Strategic Support: Many other digital services can operate on market principles, but still require initial support to:
    • Overcome market entry barriers
    • Build necessary infrastructure
    • Achieve competitive scale
    • Develop standards and interoperability

This differentiated approach ensures that essential communication services prioritize European values of privacy and social cohesion, while still encouraging innovation and competition in other service categories.

Back to the main text of the Initiative: European Digital Autonomy Initiative