Abstract
La sovranità digitale europea: programma, velleitarismo o riconoscimento di debolezza?
Il 18 novembre 2025, i rappresentanti degli Stati membri dell’Ue hanno adottato una dichiarazione per la sovranità digitale europea. Se l’evento può essere salutato come una opportuna presa di coscienza dei mutati equilibri geopolitici globali, il testo si presta ad alcune valutazioni critiche: da un lato, le affermazioni di principio non vengono sufficientemente concretizzate; dall’altro, insieme con un utilizzo non inappuntabile di concetti giuridici generali, si lascia trasparire una debolezza di fondo dell’Europa rispetto ad altri attori dell’ecosistema digitale. Questi profili di criticità suggeriscono la necessità di adottare approcci nuovi per dar corpo a un vero programma volto ad affermare una sovranità (?) digitale, approcci capaci di porre in risalto tanto i punti di forza del Vecchio Continente nello scenario geopolitico quanto le risorse disponibili relativamente a sistemi aperti localizzati nel territorio dell’Unione.
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Bio
Paolo Passaglia is a full professor of Comparative Law at the University of Pisa, where he is also director of the Master's Degree in "Digital Ecosystem Law and Technology" and coordinator of the Summer School in "Law and Geopolitics." His most recent research focuses primarily on the law of new technologies and the relationship between law and geopolitics. His most recent works include the volume "Geopolitics and Law. An Overlooked Link" (FrancoAngeli, 2026), articles on "The Declaration for European Digital Sovereignty and the (Overlooked) Usefulness of Recourse to Geopolitics" (Rivista dei Media, 2025, no. 3) and on "New Technologies and the Emergence of New Forms of Social Exclusion" (Rivista italiana di informatica e diritto, 2025, no. 2), as well as the editing of the volume "European Legal Perspectives on Online Disinformation" (forthcoming from Springer).
Abstract
European digital sovereignty: strategy, wishful thinking, or an admission of weakness?
On 18 November 2025, representatives of the EU Member States adopted a declaration on European digital sovereignty. While the event may be seen as a timely acknowledgement of shifting global geopolitical balances, the text lends itself to some critical reflections: on the one hand, its statements of principle are not sufficiently translated into concrete measures; on the other, alongside a less-than-rigorous use of general legal concepts, it reveals an underlying weakness of Europe compared with other actors in the digital ecosystem. These critical aspects suggest the need to adopt new approaches in order to give substance to a genuine programme aimed at asserting (so-called) digital sovereignty—approaches capable of highlighting both the strengths of the Old Continent in the geopolitical landscape and the resources available in relation to open systems located within the territory of the Union.
Attribution 4.0 International