From policy to practice: What Europe's leaders told us about Digital Sovereignty

A roadmap starts with quick wins

The roundtable, held at Industrious in Brussels on Tuesday, 30 June 2026, highlighted broad agreement that some projects to improve digital sovereignty could take many months and that a roadmap was essential. One speaker from the European Parliament emphasized the importance of identifying "low-hanging fruit"—changes that can deliver meaningful improvements without requiring large-scale transformation.

As one participant summed it up:

"The challenge is knowing what to prioritize, where the nuances lie, which options are available and, perhaps most importantly, where the quick wins are."

Balancing sovereignty with operational reality

They cited areas such as browser and search engine choices as examples where organizations may be able to increase sovereignty relatively quickly. However, these changes are not always straightforward. Enterprise environments require auditability and traceability, meaning privacy-focused features such as automatically deleting browsing sessions may conflict with operational or compliance requirements. In addition, many business-critical applications are designed and tested for specific browsers, so changing browser platforms can introduce compatibility issues or require significant application redesign.

The need for stronger European alternatives

Another speaker from the European Commission highlighted the current lack of European-developed alternatives in several areas of enterprise software, particularly advanced AI capabilities. While AI solutions are evolving rapidly, no single platform currently offers the breadth and depth of functionality required by many large organizations.

As one participant observed:

"There is nothing close to the level of functionality we need."

Key capabilities include the ability to analyze information across multiple data sources, identify trends and patterns, and automate complex workflows. While these capabilities are available in some of today's leading global AI platforms, comparable European-developed solutions are still emerging. Closing this gap represents an important opportunity for continued investment, innovation and collaboration across Europe.

Building Europe's digital ecosystem together

The discussion also highlighted the importance of a coordinated European approach to open source development with everyone working on the same applications, creating a robust development pipeline, in a co-creation approach to match the needs of the different member states. This will then give options for workload placement, for improved sovereignty.

A challenge facing every organization

These challenges are not unique to European institutions. Across both the public and private sectors, Digital Sovereignty has become a board-level issue—not simply because of regulation, but because many of the assumptions that underpinned digital transformation over the past decade no longer apply.

Organizations are increasingly asking themselves:

“How can we maintain control, build resilience and make informed, proportionate technology decisions in an increasingly complex and uncertain environment?”

Our unique approach to Digital Sovereignty

Fujitsu helps organizations answer these questions through a structured assessment of their digital sovereignty posture across eight domains covering data, technology and operations amongst others. The assessment provides a clear, evidence-based baseline, enabling leadership teams to understand where improvements will have the greatest impact on resilience, control and operational confidence. Delivered as a fixed-term assignment, this will help leaders evaluate trade-offs, agree priorities and develop a clear roadmap for the future.

Learn more

Visit our Digital Sovereignty hub to explore expert insights, e-books, videos and practical guidance on building a more resilient and sovereign digital future.

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Our experts Caragh O'Carroll MSc CEng, Philippe Adam, and Jean-Yves Denis in preparation for our round table hosted in Brussels, Tuesday 30 June 2026.