European tech creators issue wake-up call on digital competitiveness
Ericsson President and CEO Börje Ekholm has joined CEOs from several major European technology creators to issue a ‘wake-up call’ for stakeholders to collectively scale the continent’s technology, industry and AI competitiveness.
In addition to Ekholm, an op-ed published in several European media outlets today is signed by: Airbus CEO, Guillaume Faury; ASML President and CEO, Christophe Fouquet; Mistral AI Co-founder and CEO, Arthur Mensch; Nokia President and CEO, Justin Hotard; SAP CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board, Christian Klein; and Siemens President and CEO, Roland Busch.
“We stand ready to support European leaders as they step up to the urgency of the moment,” the op-ed says. “The next phase of innovation will be defined by how digital capabilities are applied in the real world – across industries, infrastructure, and entire economies. Achieving Europe’s strategic goals requires robust, market-driven, sectoral policy support.”
Identified actions include the need to prioritize innovation ahead of regulation and to shape future standards and technology leadership through building and deploying the latest tech. The CEOs say stifling, unnecessarily complex, and often overlapping rules make it incredibly hard to keep pace with the speed of technological progress.
Building strategic resilience is another identified priority. The CEOs say true wealth and resilience are built on creating and controlling intellectual property, rather than merely consuming it.
The CEOs say European and national governments also need to catalyze private capital by fully realizing the Savings and Investments Union, and reform competition and M&A regimes, to enable the strategic consolidation and scale necessary to compete globally.
While the tech creators’ op-ed says Europe is losing competitiveness daily, decisive collective action will address the challenge. At a time of unprecedented technology and geopolitical change, the CEOs say decisions made in the coming months and years will determine whether Europe can compete and thrive in the decades ahead.
The signatories say they see openness to change - pointing to the Draghi and Letta reports and the European Commission’s competitiveness - as recognition that Europe must act differently.
The op-ed follows a meeting between the seven CEOs and European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, in Brussels last week.
“Now, more than ever, we urgently need to come together as tech creators and policymakers to turn this ambition into action,” the op-ed says. “We stand ready to do our part and to support those European leaders willing to take bold action. The time is now. Let us collectively rise to the challenge.”
Collectively, the seven tech companies generate revenues of EUR 417 billion and represent a market capitalisation of almost EUR 1.1 trillion. They provide almost a million high-tech jobs worldwide, invest more than EUR 40 billion in R&D annually, and control more than 210,000 patents globally.
Read the Op-Ed via this link.