Eat local tech
Europe is brimming with talent, tech startups, and resources, yet our companies struggle to leverage these assets on their own soil. What if it were time to consume local?
While many talented individuals fly off each year to foreign companies, mostly American ones, attracted by enticing opportunities and mature ecosystems, our European companies continue to prefer technologies from elsewhere. This double drain — of talent and capital — threatens our technological and economic sovereignty in the long run.
The talent drain
Europe has built a world-class educational system and centers of excellence in key sectors such as aeronautics, biotechnology, and green technologies, which illustrate the continent’s ability to bring together resources and expertise around strategic sectors. Yet our engineers, researchers, and developers regularly leave Europe to join American tech giants (the “Magnificent Seven”), among others. This “brain drain” weakens our innovation capacity and, by extension, our ability to build European champions mastering breakthrough technologies and capable of competing on the global stage.
On top of this, there is an attractiveness problem for European tech companies. Many struggle to offer competitive work environments in terms of compensation (unfavorable tax treatment of stock options, etc.), suffer from a rigid regulatory framework, and operate in a capital market far more cautious than that of the United States. The consequence: our best talents work to enrich foreign entities, to the detriment of the European ecosystem.
Dependence on foreign technologies
Alongside this brain drain, our companies, large and small, tend to favor technologies developed outside our borders. American giants in cloud computing, enterprise software, and artificial intelligence largely dominate the European market, with rare exceptions. This situation leads to a capital outflow abroad in the form of payments for the use of these technological solutions.
This dependence is not without consequences: it limits our ability to develop local alternatives, weakens our strategic assets, and further enriches already hegemonic players.
Solutions: awareness and collective mobilization Faced with this double drain, solutions exist, but they require collective mobilization from policymakers, business leaders, and investors.
Investing in talent
European companies must be able to offer attractive career paths. This requires political will to establish a tax framework that improves compensation conditions (reduced tax burden, flexibility in work organization, etc.), but also a recognition of the potential impact of European projects. No one imagines a future without technology. Authorities have a duty to act so that the conditions enabling European companies to offer an attractive proposition to all our talents are met.
Favoring European technologies
Companies must adopt a proactive strategy to integrate European technological solutions. This means going beyond a purely short-term approach and considering the long-term strategic benefits of technological sovereignty. Initiatives like those of Framasoft or European-Alternatives, which aim to offer alternatives to GAFAM software, must be supported and amplified. Our tech gems, still too little known, deserve increased attention. Managers must not take the easy route by systematically favoring American giants.
Raising awareness about the importance of technological sovereignty Companies and citizens must be made aware of the impact of their choices on the European economy. Every subscription to a foreign cloud service or every contract signed with a foreign company contributes to weakening the local ecosystem and reinforcing GAFAM hegemony. The media have an essential role to play in this regard. Europe benefits from a unique media ecosystem. Everyone must take responsibility.
Supporting European research infrastructure
The public research effort must regain its ambition. It must be targeted at teams and laboratories capable of working in concert with companies responsible for developing and commercializing innovations. Universities must become more efficient and selective to enable high-impact breakthrough innovations.
A strategic urgency
Europe lacks neither talent nor technology, but a true collective awakening to leverage its assets. Valuing European technologies and retaining our talents is not just a matter of economic competitiveness, but also of sovereignty.
As the geopolitical developments of early 2025 underscore the urgency for Europe to achieve autonomy in defense matters, how could it succeed while neglecting the digital sphere?
Our companies bear a particular responsibility in this fight: they are both the engine of our economy and the guarantors of our technological independence.
By redirecting our efforts toward European solutions, we will not only choose resilience, but also the future. It is time to act before this drain of talent and capital becomes irreversible.
Baptiste FOSSEPREZ Florian ERNOTTE CEO PEPITE Partner – avroy avocats