The Limits of Openness in Europe’s Digital Sovereignty Agenda

Digital sovereignty is high on the EU’s policy agenda, with increasing interest in open source software and technologies as a pathway to sovereignty that foregrounds public value and institutional autonomy. While open infrastructures offer alternatives to proprietary ecosystems and closed platforms, they are not a panacea to the extractive logics of ‘Big Tech’. As open source and digital commons receive mainstream and policy recognition, they must contend with questions related to the labour that sustains these ecosystems, the materialities of these infrastructures, and unequal capacities to benefit from and shape them.

Bringing together perspectives from policy, civil society, and the open source community, this panel explores: what does a truly progressive and inclusive digital sovereignty agenda look like—progressive both in its understanding of sovereignty and in its conceptualisation of openness.

Dieser Programmpunkt wird durch die Stiftung Mercator unterstützt. / This programme session is supported by Stiftung Mercator.