Keynote by Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President European Commission

we have uh we promised a a mini session so a mini session it will be indeed but um we’re going to have a little exchange of information with you a couple of points first of all we’d like to get to know you better but and we also thought it was a good opportunity for you to know one another better know your neighbors to the left to the right who’s in front who’s at the back what’s the general picture like in our room so i’m going to ask a couple of questions and ask you for a show of hands so how many of you here are under 30 hey look at this all the youth day crowd we heard it’s the 19th edition of euro dig so who’s here for the first time not just the younger crowd but yeah great well done who’s here for the second or third time few less who’s been here more than five times already five times or more yes that’s right i was gonna say the old timers with absolutely i mean take it from me that’s all right i can say that so and uh who is from eu so who’s from an eu member state vast majority okay who’s from an european country but non -eu hey very good to have you on board and who’s not from europe very good a pretty broad geographical spread then which means also that all the exchanges that we’re having are all the more valid because it brings us back to the conversation we were having earlier about the global impact of what we do.

So let’s move on to what lies ahead now. As you know, we’re going to welcome the Executive Vice President of the Commission, Henna Virkkunen and we’d like for you to ask her questions. She’s taken up the challenge of having a dialogue with you because this is the way this event is built, as I said, not just another conference. So she’s decided to give you the chance of having a direct dialogue with her. And to do so, we’re going to invite you to send your questions through Slido so that questions are short and to the point, and we give the same chance to those of you in the room and those of you online. So the QR code is you can test your connection to the website or not to the website, to the Slido side so that when the time comes, you can ask her questions.

And we’re going to try and set aside about 20 minutes for questions out of our half hour. So we rely on you. It’s your chance. And it’s your chance to target questions at the highest political level. And we heard this morning from some of our speakers what lies ahead in the commission, what lies ahead in terms of future plans. We heard some very interesting points also when it came to the quantum space and what lies ahead in that field as well. So all these topics. future plans, future developments, positioning of the EU, the trust, the future developments of .eu, all these questions are of course open. So I’m getting some news here that I can, the vice president has just entered the building, so she will be with us in a minute.

So practice your questions, rehearse, take them down as she speaks, but also put them down, stepping from the experience of what we’ve heard so far, and we definitely rely on you for a strong exchange. We rely on you online as well. João is there, he’s going to be monitoring the questions. Same rules apply, either you send your questions, no, you’re not going to be able to speak on this time, I was going to say something stupid, you’re not going to be able to speak on this time, you don’t send the questions in the chat, preferably send them through Slido. If by mistake you send them in the chat, we’re going to try and pick them up.

But please use Slido like all the audience here in the room. So it’s a pleasure to now welcome our keynote speaker for this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Vice President Virkkunen who’s in charge of the tech sovereignty, security and democracy at the European Commission. Good afternoon, Madam Vice President and welcome. We were waiting for you. I was kind of speaking on until you joined. So that’s perfect. In the last

Thank you very much, honourable guests, ladies and gentlemen. And happy birthday to .eu. 20 years ago, .eu was launched as a digital symbol of European unity. And today, it is the ninth largest country code top -level domain in the world. It has given our businesses, citizens and organizations a truly pan -European digital identity. So I think it’s a great occasion today to celebrate this achievement. And it’s clear that it has also strengthened our single market. And importantly, it has also done so with a very remarkable reliability, resilience and security. And this is not a small achievement. So I want to warmly thank your read, your dig and all those who have helped make .eu a success story for Europe.

Because this is not only an anniversary for us. This is also and it’s a beginning of a new chapter. For internet governance. If my 20 years younger self could see today’s internet, she would barely recognize it. Because as we remember, in 2006, Wi -Fi was still something very luxury, and public hotspots were very rare, and personal blogs felt cutting edge during that time. And today we see that internet, of course, is everywhere. It underpins our economies, our democracies, also our security, our societies, and increasingly also our daily lives. And yet, for all that has changed, two core foundations remain very essential. First, the internet remains a global network of interconnected and interoperable systems. And second, its governance has been strongest when built through the multi -stakeholder model.

And these foundations, they have served us very well. But the environment around them has changed very dramatically. The internet was meant to be open and also meant to be decentralized and full of opportunity. Yet today we see increasing concentration of power, wealth and technological capability. Also persistent digital devices, which many still exclude from meaningful connectivity. And also we see growing strategic dependencies in critical technologies such as semiconductors, cloud or AI. And an increasingly hostile online environment we see also from cyber threats and disinformation to very harmful content affecting children and young people. And this means that preserving the internet’s openness cannot mean that we are standing still. It really requires our action. Europe’s vision for the next decade is very clear.

We want an internet that remains open, remains global and remains interoperable. An internet where human rights are respected, also diversity is protected, innovation can flourish and fair opportunities exist for all. And that brings me to why WSIS plus 20. The conclusion of these negotiations last year, it was an important milestone for all of us. This decision to reaffirm the multi -stakeholder model and to give the Internet Governance Forum a permanent mandate matters greatly. Because Internet Governance works best when governments, industry, our civil society, academia and the technical community work all together. And regional and national dialogues matter too. As the WSIS plus 20 outcome rightly recognizes, forums like YouTube, EURODIG are very essential. because they build trust, they also enable open exchange, and they ensure that Internet governance remains inclusive, grounded, and legitimate.

It’s very important to underline that Europe remains fully committed to the multi -stakeholder model of Internet governance. And I encourage European stakeholders, including country -code top -level domain operators and the .eu community to remain active and ambitious in these processes. Because Europe must continue to help shape the global conversation. But there is also another reality we must confront. Europe has been very strong in shaping digital rules. The Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, they are setting global benchmarks for a safer and fairer digital environment. And I think that’s very important. But we also see that regulation is not enough. Europe remains too dependent on technological and technologies developed and controlled elsewhere than in Europe.

And this is clearly an economic vulnerability, a security vulnerability and increasingly also a strategic vulnerability for us. And this is why technological sovereignty also matters. Technological sovereignty is not about isolation. It’s not about closing ourselves off. It is about Europe having the capability to develop and to maintain and to control and scale the critical technologies and infrastructures on which our economy, our security and our democracy depend. It’s also preserving our ability to make strategic choices. And it’s about ensuring that our values are reflected in the digital systems we rely on. And in this sense, .eu. is more than a domain name. It is a very concrete example of European digital sovereignty in practice. A trusted European digital infrastructure, a competitive European asset, and a proof that sovereignty and openness can reinforce each other.

This same thinking will guide the next phase of Europe’s digital agenda. On the 3rd of June, or next week, I will present our tech sovereignty package designed to strengthen Europe’s capabilities in critical technologies. And this package will include, first, Gipsax 2 .0 to reinforce Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem and supply chain resilience. Second, a Cloud and AI Development Act to strengthen Europe’s sovereign digital infrastructure. And third, an EU open source strategy, including for our institutions, to reinforce technological autonomy and openness. But I want to very much stress one final point for you. Because technological sovereignty does not mean doing everything alone. It’s very important to underline that Europe remains open. We believe in cooperation. We believe in trusted partnerships.

And we believe that a more competitive, more diverse, more choice -driven digital ecosystem benefits everybody. Because reducing unhealthy dependencies does not weaken the open Internet. It makes it more resilient. Ladies and gentlemen, dear participants, the future of the Internet will not be shaped by technology alone. It will be shaped by choices, by governance, by cooperation, and by whether we remain faithful to the principles that made the Internet such a transformative force in the first place. So I want to thank everybody for being part of this conversation here in Brussels and also online, because we know that Europe voice really matters and the future of the Internet is something we must shape all together. So thank you and congratulations for all of you.

So as I announced, please take a seat. As I announced, Vice President Virkkunen has very kindly agreed to take your questions and we have already received several. So I’m going to raise the questions we have received online. As you probably know, we had a session this morning discussing quantum and we heard that you’re going to have a meeting tomorrow discussing it further. So we have a question here asking, how are we going to manage? How are we going to make sure we keep up with emergencies technologies like quantum?

yeah i think let’s see yes it works yes i think especially when we speak about quantum of course this is certainly a field where europe is very strong so you know very well that our researchers and scientists they are world top when it comes to quantum and our researchers they are they are leading in the scientific publications on quantum but then now we have to really make sure that all our great innovations on quantum that they can enter to the markets in the european union and also that our very promising startups which are working on quantum that they are able to scale up their businesses in europe often it has happened that we are creating great innovations in europe so we are not having a gap on innovations but we have really problem on scaling up the businesses so so to make sure that our innovations they have access to markets and access to financing so these are the most important things that we are able to do and i think that’s a really important thing important priorities for this commission And that’s why we are working with our competitiveness compass also to create better capital markets union, to give better funding opportunities for our businesses.

And also we want to remove the obstacles between our member states to really also use the full potential of our digital single market. But these are clearly also the challenges we have been identifying. So we see that we have many strengths in the European Union. I think we have great basis because we have so excellent science and research and also so huge potential in our startups. But now really the areas where we have to work is to give opportunities to scale up the businesses in Europe, to enter to the markets in the European Union and also to have access to finance in the European Union. Because otherwise we are losing too many of our very promising innovations to other markets.

And quantum is certainly something where we are now working very closely with the stakeholders towards our quantum act.

And what is the EU strategy for closer cooperation with other like -minded countries in Europe and globally on digital sovereignty?

Yes, our very clear partners when it comes to digital sovereignty are, of course, the countries with whom we have already digital partnerships. So I would like to mention countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Canada. They are very close partners for us and we are working closely with them to look also the challenges all of us are facing nowadays globally. So we want to build up our own capacity and also better resilience for our supply chains. And of course, also all our enlargement countries next to us are very important partners. UK as well, Brazil, for example. there is several countries all over the world who are very willing to work together with European Union and in the same time when we see clearly that we have to build up our own capacity we want to also work very closely with our trusted partners especially when we look at different supply chains which are nowadays very global so to build better resilience there and also share expertise together with our partners.

Building up on the digital sovereignty question we have another one that asks in what way is the EU fostering digital sovereignty to protect national security interests? I suppose that refers to national as the EU as a whole.

We are now living in the world that we have to always look to security aspects. We have to look to economic security that we don’t have that kind of risky dependencies which can be like weaponized against us but we have to also look the overall security aspects. Of each initiative what we are making especially when it comes to digital domain already in this year we have adopted and proposed our our legislation to to revise our cyber security rules and there we were addressing also our critical infrastructure that we were proposing as a commission that we will look now all the fields of our critical infrastructure which is uh uh totally 18 different areas defined in our niche two directive uh that what kind of risky components we have there uh and how we are able also to to assess and mitigate those risks what what uh um these different stakeholders there and companies are posing so really to look that we don’t have high risk vendors inside in our critical infrastructure and if there’s high risk vendors what are the critical components and how we are mitigating those risks so we are looking all the rest we have been already focusing during the last years to 5g networks but now we are also looking at the critical fields of our critical infrastructure and how we are mitigating those risks so we are looking all the fields like financing energy water uh health care so all this sector, that what kind of risks there could be in this value chain, this ICT supply chain, and how we are mitigating those risks.

And also on next week, when we will propose our tech sovereignty package, one important part of that is AI and Cloud Development Act. And there we are also defining a sovereign cloud, that what does it mean to have a sovereign cloud. And we see that clearly there is that kind of very sensitive areas in our economy, very critical sectors, where it’s important, for example, that the cloud is controlled by Europeans and also that the data is localized in Europe. It’s not the case in all the services, of course, but when we speak about very critical services of our economies, we have to be also, we have to look that we are able to control always the information and data and their services in all circumstances.

So we are working on that. Thank you.

And how do you believe we can combine the data and the services of the European Union? Thank you. And how do you believe we can combine AI competitiveness with AI sovereignty?

can we uh i think we can so i’m i’m also uh i’m very sure that we have everything what is needed also to be very competitive in ai and in all technologies because like i said earlier that we have excellent research and science and we have so much potential in our startups and also we have very strong industrial bases as well but now we have to really boost the innovations and investments in the european union especially when it comes to ai we have there for example 8 000 startups which are developing and training ai and there’s huge potential but one big obstacle for them has been that they haven’t had access to computing capacity and that’s why together with our member states we are investing now into 19 ai factories to give this computing capacity for our startups and for our smes to train and develop ai created in europe And the idea around AI factories is really to bring together not only the computing capacity to train and develop AI, but also high quality data sets and also to talent and excellence of AI.

Because in the same time when we are working to develop our European AI, which is created by European content, by our languages, also it’s important to support all our businesses to uptake AI. In last year, already 50 % more businesses were using AI than a year before. So it has been increasing very fast, but still there’s big differences between the member states and between different industries and public sector. So we have very clear like two parts where we are now working. One is really to boost innovations and investments in AI, especially we are fostering this with the investments to computing capacity and also to building the competence and talent. But then another important sector is really to support our public sector, industries and SMEs to uptake AI.

Thank you. Then on to a different topic now. Do you think that open source and open standards are important for Europe’s digital resilience? And if so, how are you going to support them in practice?

Yes, it will be a very key part of our next week’s tech sovereignty package, our open source strategy, because we see that while using open source technologies, we can really boost our own homegrown technologies and our companies in European Union, they can get a great boost by that. So we should use it also more strategically. And next week, we will also propose our strategy and action plan on that.

How do we bring, we’re back to digital sovereignty, I take questions in the order in which they come. How do we bring private capital on board on digital sovereignty concretely and not just the big finance, but also large EU company and incumbents?

Yeah, the good news is that we have a lot of capital in the European Union. So we know that we have more than 30 trillion euros only in the bank accounts in the European Union. But of course, one main question is that we should really mobilize all these savings to investments. And one challenge is really our households, because European families and households, they tend to keep their savings on the bank accounts instead of investing them. There’s big differences between member states. In Nordics, more than 50 percent of the households, they are investing. They are investing to stock markets or to funds their savings. But in many big member states, it’s only a few percent of the households who are doing that.

So there we have to really also support our member states, because this is very much up to taxation. For example, in different member states, it’s how much they are encouraging, for example, citizens to really invest. savings. But then also when we speak about institutional investors and pension funds, there’s a lot of work we have to really do with them, that they are also investing more to European markets, because too often it happens that they are investing to USA markets instead of European Union. So we are working now with our savings and investments union package together with our Commissioner Albuquerque. We have also a very ambitious plan there, and I see that this is the most important part of our tech sovereignty, really to make sure that we are able to really mobilize now the capital also to support these investments which are needed.

I think nowadays it’s quite, we can’t maybe say that it’s easy, but there is much better opportunities now for the startup companies to get very early stage support. But when investments more than 50 million euros, 100 million euros are needed, it’s still very difficult to get that from Europe. And when we speak about technology companies, it’s crucial often for them to have big, big tickets. And there we have to work also that we are able to also give these opportunities for growth for those companies. Thank you very much.

Now, thanks a lot for answering our questions. I know there were maybe one or two more questions, but I’ve taken as many as possible. And I understand we’re now asking for a family photo with some of our colleagues. So I’ll leave, I’ll make room, and I’ll ask our .eu colleagues and EURID colleagues to join us on stage, please, together with you, Madam Vice President, and thank you very much for answering our questions. Thank you.