While Brussels is ramping up its rhetoric on technological sovereignty, a simpler question deserves to be asked: What innovative European product does the rest of the world actually need today? From semiconductor manufacturer ASML to telecom equipment suppliers, not to mention certain industrial know-how, the list of European assets capable of giving the continent real bargaining power is far shorter than political statements suggest, and Mistral AI is not among them. Europe talks a lot about sovereignty. Perhaps even too much. Amid promises of leadership in artificial intelligence, industrial plans, and announcements of billions of euros in investments, a simpler question is rarely asked: what are the assets produced in Europe today that the rest of the world—and Europe itself—cannot truly do without? This question lies at the heart of a recent foresight exercise titled “Europe 2031,” which envisions a scenario in which Europe would gradually become marginalized in the AI revolution. The text, deliberately alarmist, is based on a simple idea: sovereignty is not measured by self-sufficiency but by the ability to exert “leverage”…
