Editorial : On Digital Sovereignty, New European Data Rules, and the Future of Free Data Flows

“Digital sovereignty” has become a buzzword of the new European policies and rules on data governance. This discourse, however, is not entirely new. Already at the dawn of data protection laws in Europe, information sovereignty was one of the concerns that regulation of personal data flows aimed to address. Digital sovereignty concerns have now resurfaced with a new force. To some extent, it is a reaction to the increasing concerns about the growing power of non-EU companies, control over data, constraints to the growth of EU technology companies and the rule-makers’ ability to enforce their laws. At the risk of over-simplifying, the EU’s power to regulate (ability “to make its own choices, based on its values, respecting its own rules”) is arguably the common denominator of the multiple definitions of and regulatory instruments advancing “digital sovereignty” by EU political institutions in the area of data governance. Retaining its technological and digital sovereignty is a part of the EU’s industrial strategy