French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meet with investors during the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty on November 18, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. Photo: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Tuesday local time during the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty in Berlin, Germany that Europe that must avoid becoming a tech "vassal" of the US and China, urging a "European preference," as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz echoed calls at the same event for the bloc to secure its digital future and reduce dependence on foreign tech powers, France 24, AFP and Reuters reported.

Some Chinese observers reached by the Global Times on Wednesday hold a cautiously optimistic view of the new round of European campaign to build up technology competitiveness, while pointing out that the lack of concrete steps, relatively limited budgets for basic research and different understanding of autonomy among bloc members are major obstacles to turning slogans into actual results.

"Europe doesn't want to be the client of the big entrepreneurs or the big solutions being provided either from the US or from China. We clearly want to design our own solutions," Macron told a Berlin summit, adding that this stance represented "a refusal of being a vassal," according to France 24 . 

The French president made the remarks at the European Summit on Digital Sovereignty, which, per the report, brought together tech leaders and ministers from across the continent, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Macron said he strongly believed that "European preference" should be the guiding principle, while arguing that Chinese have their own exclusivity and the Americans have a strong American preference.  

He also underlined the stakes for Europe in having more autonomy in the tech sector. "You cannot dedicate the strength of your economy to the 'Magnificent Seven'," he said, referring to US tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.

The most desperate anxiety for Europe also stems from the fact that its core architecture is deeply bolted to US technology, with no independent search engine or operating system of its own. "It has become just an application layer sitting on top of someone else's stack," Wang Yiwei, a professor of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, who just visited Brussels to attend the13th China-Europe Forum, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Compared with the US and China, the EU has been lagging behind in terms of investment in research and development (R&D). Moreover, even with more money allocated to R&D, the bloc's regulatory rigidity has become a straitjacket on Europe's innovative capacity, Zhao Junjie, a senior research fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

According to media reports, the EU only invests about 2.2 percent of the bloc's GDP in R&D, lower than the US and China, which stands at around 3.5 percent and 2.65 percent respectively.  

The French president also wrote in a post on X on Wednesday that "simplify our rules to unleash innovation, innovate more, protect our data, assert a European preference, and ensure fair competition against American and Chinese giants: this is our roadmap."

In the same post, he said that "a market of 450 million consumers, a unique scientific and technological ecosystem, and a strengthened Franco-German convergence: all of this is translating today into more than 12 billion euros of investments by our private players in our key technologies."

Merz also said at the digital summit in Berlin on Tuesday that "the tectonic shifts we are currently witnessing in the world, in the political and economic centers of power, demand swift action in the digital sphere." 

While noting that the US and China, two digital superpowers, are vying for technological leadership, Merz stressed that "Europe must not cede this field to them." 
"Among EU member states, there are sharply divergent interpretations of 'strategic autonomy,' coupled with significant disparities in execution capability and efficiency. This makes it extremely difficult to generate unified momentum. As a result, the EU struggles to develop technology, particularly in high-risk, high-reward frontier fields—in the same decisive and coordinated manner as fully sovereign nations such as China and the US," Zhao elaborated.

The EU will propose rolling back rules on AI and data protection later this week, a topic that is expected to feature prominently at the summit, according to the report.

A senior official from the French presidency, who was not named in the report, clarified that the summit was not about "confrontation" with the US or even China. Rather, it is about "how we protect our core sovereignty and what rules need to be established, especially at the European level", the official said.

Europe's anxiety about technological competition with China and the US is nothing new. 

"We in Europe must not allow the US and China to decide the technological future on their own." On October 29, Merz used this line as his opening remark to announce the official launch of the "German High-Tech Agenda" in Berlin. 
On October 4, the British Financial Times published an article titled "EU pushes new AI strategy to reduce tech reliance on US and China", which said that "the EU must promote homegrown artificial intelligence platforms and decrease its reliance on foreign providers, Brussels has said, as it prepares to set out a new plan to compete against the US and China in the global race for the revolutionary technology.

The Irish Times reported on November 13 that Mike Fries, CEO of the multinational telecom group Liberty Global, lashed out at the EU, saying that the bloc has had its foot on the industry's neck for 20 years, and accused Brussels of doing nothing to implement recommendations made by former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi to improve its competitiveness.

In September this year, Deutsche Bank released a research report stating that, as of September 4, only 11.2 percent of the recommendations has been fully implemented, Business Insider reported. Europe's big comeback plan to close the innovation gap with the US and China is struggling to take off, the report said.

Ambassador Cai Run, head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, said at the 13th China-Europe Forum that China is willing to work with the EU to upgrade China-EU economic and trade cooperation, consolidate and deepen cooperation in traditional areas such as trade and investment, actively expand cooperation in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, the digital economy, and green development, and achieve more results, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry website on November 13.