You heard that right. Europe needs to show courage.
Right now you hear everywhere that Europe is supposedly falling short. I doubt that. But I want to zoom in on my own field, technology.
Let us be very clear. Europe is not falling short. Europe has simply leaned too long and too lazily on others. But even so, we should never forget that Europe is the cradle of modern technology. Just as it is the cradle of many other things. We may have grown lazy and lost some pride, but that does not change the truth. And there is more than enough hope to build on.
This is not the moment to explain that many technologies and inventions originated in Europe. Nor the moment to dive into the debate about how others claim breakthroughs as if the origins did not lie here in Europe. Historically or recently. Partially or fully. This is not a pissing contest, as you might say in good German. Or... well. Listen.
The Netherlands in particular has marched very obediently alongside a friend for a long time. That friend seems less friendly now. And it is true that much of our service landscape became dependent on that former friend. But let’s not pretend that was our only problem. The Netherlands also once put all its proverbial eggs in the Centric basket. And let us not forget the scandal around the trust chain of DigiNotar’s SSL certificates. A footnote for many, but it shows perfectly how dependency and convenience collide. And meanwhile, government data of citizens still sits on servers far outside our borders, just like emails. We have become lazy. That is all.
We could go on like this for a while, not just within the Netherlands but throughout Europe. The point is, wherever people work, mistakes are made. But wherever Europeans work, we can once again take the lead as we once did.
So are we in Europe digitally doomed? No. Far from it. Europe has an enormous level of knowledge. And although we have had to absorb some heavy blows because outsourcing and awarding work increasingly happened far from our continent, there is still a trace of that time in which Europe led the way.
And we can make up that lost ground whenever we want to. If we show courage. That means investing in our own infrastructure, retaining talent, giving new companies breathing room and offering political backing to the people who can deliver. We have an insanely good infrastructure. We have historical milestones that still stand strong. From AMS IX to SIDN in the Netherlands. And from France’s Mistral in AI to Germany’s datacenter alternatives to non European market leaders today.
More importantly, if Europe shows courage today, then across many European countries people and companies will resurface who can not only build what we have been taking from elsewhere. But people and parties who can push it further and elevate it to heights we have not yet seen. Unrestrained by a single form of commerce. Unrestrained by the pause button we seemingly pressed for the engineers on our continent.
Europe is a place of academics. Scientists. Democracy. Technology. We were all of that long before some other regions in the world even existed. And with the right political support we can be that again in the blink of an eye. But we have to start now. Every day we wait we lose pioneers with deep low level knowledge. And every day we wait we lose entrepreneurs willing to take the risk in the European investment climate. So come on. Shoulders to the wheel. We can stand on our own feet. But give us the space. We can do this ourselves if we are allowed to.
We did not ask for this. But it is happening anyway. So be it. Stop prioritising others, and let us help Europe lead again.