Imagine, for a moment, a parallel universe where on a brisk morning in Brussels, EU leaders decided to build their own Google — complete with the quiet confidence of Airbus and the grand ambition of the Single Market. Think about a Europe no longer lamenting its lack of Big Tech behemoths but instead pointing to a homegrown “euro-Google” or “euro-Amazon” as a shining star on the global stage. Sound far-fetched?
It shouldn’t. This is the road Europe might have travelled. And that it didn’t explains why we’re now so thoroughly reliant on America’s digital oligopoly and increasingly overshadowed by China’s confident push for tech sovereignty. Some will say this was inevitable — Europe, with its regulatory zeal and fragmented market, was never going to stand up to Silicon Valley. Yet history brims with lessons that bold interventions, strategic alliances, and yes, sometimes protectionism, can alter a region’s destiny. It’s worth asking why Europe chose not to chart that path and what it lost by bowing out of the global tech race so early.
A historical 'what if?'
Consider the success of Airbus. In the 1970s, the notion of Europe challenging America’s Boeing seemed laughable. Politicians, however, recognised aviation as strategic — vital for jobs, research, and prestige. So they forged a multinational consortium, pumped in capital, and patiently nurtured it with orders from European airlines. Decades later, Airbus isn’t just a competitor; it’s a global power broker in the skies. Or think of how Europe, led by its telecom giants, once set the GSM mobile standard, paving the way for Nokia and Ericsson to dominate the mobile phone industry in the 1990s.
Nothing about that spirit demanded it remain locked to planes and phone signals. Europe could just as easily have aimed such ambition at its digital industries. Some tried. In 2005, France and Germany launched the “Quaero” project — an effort at a European search engine that was supposed to champion the continent’s languages and “cultural approach” to the internet. It fizzled amid bickering, political meddling, and a conspicuous lack of follow-through. Instead of a robust competitor, it became a cautionary tale: good ideas bereft of willpower.
Meanwhile, in Beijing…
There’s a potent counterexample across the world. When Google, Facebook, and other American firms were racing for global dominance, China’s government did two things in parallel: it barred or constrained the foreign platforms (citing “security” concerns) and cleared a path for domestic equivalents. Baidu took search, Alibaba redefined e-commerce, Tencent seized social media. Seed funding poured in from government-backed banks, venture capital soared, and the world’s second-largest internet user base became a captive market. By the time Beijing got serious about reining in Big Tech —including antitrust moves against Alibaba and Tencent — the local champions were already too entrenched to be undone.
Does one have to admire the moral or political cost of these moves? Absolutely not. Yet the economic result is undeniable: China boasts world-class firms, some of which now challenge Silicon Valley. That’s the price it was willing to pay for digital sovereignty.
Europe’s regulatory conundrum
By contrast, Brussels was more worried about reining in potential monopolists than about building globally competitive giants. The net result of aggressive competition policy and cautious regulation — whether it’s been privacy (GDPR) or antitrust enforcement (massive fines on Google) — is that consumers gained certain protections, but the continent never cultivated its own tech titans. With every new rule, compliance costs soared — costs that plucky startups could ill afford but which well-capitalised American incumbents could easily swallow.
One might, of course, defend these regulations as essential. Europe has a culture that values data privacy and consumer protections. That’s admirable. But every system has trade-offs, and the trade-off here was effectively ceding digital leadership to foreign firms. The biggest players in Europe’s online ecosystem — Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Google — remain American, while newer, high-growth platforms, such as TikTok, hail from China.
Money matters
Ask any European founder what really separates them from their American or Chinese counterparts, and they’ll point to funding. Europe’s venture capital landscape historically couldn’t hold a candle to that of the United States. Public stock markets were more limited, pension funds were slower to invest in high-risk ventures, and even the entrepreneurial ethos was more conservative. Instead of focusing on blistering growth, European startups often sought to prove revenue streams early, then wound up selling to larger, foreign companies. Skype is a familiar story: launched in Estonia, acquired by eBay, and eventually absorbed by Microsoft. A hypothetical “euro-Skype” that might have scaled into a bigger platform never got the runway.
A different approach was possible. The 1979 US pension reform that let retirement funds invest in venture capital supercharged Silicon Valley. Europe could have enacted a similar shift in the 1990s or 2000s, funnelling some of its massive pension assets into tech. That, along with a more unified stock exchange for startups from Lisbon to Helsinki, would have made it easier for local entrepreneurs to raise capital at home — and to stay there.
The path not taken
To be clear, Europe didn’t need to replicate the Great Firewall to shield local platforms. A lighter version of strategic favouritism might have sufficed: awarding major government IT contracts to European firms, imposing stricter data-localisation for foreign companies, or offering large-scale public-private investment in a European “cloud alliance.” Instead, Europe served as a level playing field — an open door for foreign tech. That might sound noble, but in practice it meant local challengers were left with no distinct advantages while fighting global Goliaths on Day One.
Could a more protective Europe have stifled innovation, raised consumer prices, or restricted choice? Possibly. Industrial policy isn’t a magic wand — just ask the engineers behind Quaero. But the alternative path was open competition on a playing field so vast that only the biggest American firms could truly thrive. And thrive they did, swamping Europe and most of the world with their unmatched scale.
Looking ahead
The moral of this story isn’t that Europe should have built its own firewall. Rather, it’s that sovereignty — especially digital sovereignty — requires more than setting rules after foreign giants arrive. It demands strategic investments and a willingness to pick winners (and losers), something Europe’s bureaucrats have never felt comfortable doing.
In truth, the moment to create a European Google or Amazon has likely passed. The next generation, though — artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotech — offers a second chance. If Europe wishes to matter in these realms, it must do more than issue guidance documents and fines. It needs money, unified markets, and that all-important intangible: the nerve to favour local innovators rather than hoping the rest of the world will indulge them.
Otherwise, we’ll have this same conversation again in ten years, with Europe once again wondering how its homegrown businesses lost out while clever entrepreneurs in China or California cornered the future.
So here’s a modest proposal: Stop apologising for industrial policy and start adapting it — intelligently, transparently, and with real funding. Airbus proved it can be done. In the digital age, it’s time Europe reacquaints itself with its more daring, cooperative instincts. It might not produce a “euro-Google” overnight, but it would ensure we’re not left asking ourselves again why it never happened in the first place.