Tales of Digital Sovereignty and Child Online Safety: Von der Leyen’s State of the Union Address

In this piece for the Dublin City University’s Law and Tech Research Center, authors Karolin Rippich & Victor Henriquez Diaz discuss President Ursula von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union address, delivered on September 10 before the European Parliament. The authors note that this annual speech, which has been a tradition since 2010, takes stock of the EU’s progress and sets out the Commission’s priorities for the coming year. Von der Leyen’s fifth address, and second of her new term, was framed against a backdrop of geopolitical instability, democratic backsliding, and technological disruption, positioning the EU as needing to defend its values and self-determination from “ambivalent” and “hostile” powers pursuing imperialistic paths.

The authors observe that while von der Leyen presented the EU as a “peace project” under siege or “in a fight,” the address actually marked a shift from crisis response to agenda setting, suggesting the Commission is “up for a fight” to guarantee EU independence rather than merely defending against threats. Beyond pressing topics like international armed conflicts, defense, and EU enlargement, von der Leyen devoted notable attention to the digital realm, including the twin transition, disinformation, digital sovereignty, and child online safety. The authors focus their analysis on digital sovereignty in particular.

Rippich and Henriquez Diaz explain that the Commission has identified a new strategy of diversifying the EU’s partnerships to achieve technological independence, driven by the increasing unreliability of EU-US relations and the bonding of adversaries like Russia and China. President Trump’s threats to raise tariffs on countries whose regulations “target” and “harm” American Big Tech companies have given digital sovereignty almost existential importance for the EU. The Commission confirmed intentions to further alliances with nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with recent progress made with Mexico and Mercosur, a potential adequacy decision with Brazil, and continued development of the Global Gateway. The authors welcome this nuanced approach to strategic autonomy, noting it acknowledges that the EU cannot accomplish these goals in isolation and lacks the resources to achieve digital sovereignty alone.

The authors identify a second strategy involving directing attention toward infrastructure and departing from the EU’s traditional role as a legal “trend-setter” in the digital field. Von der Leyen emphasized initiatives like the EU Cloud and AI Development Act, significant investment in EU Gigafactories, and projects like Eurostack to develop all layers required for digital sovereignty. She also promoted regulatory simplification through the “Digital Omnibus” in response to overregulation concerns expressed in the Draghi report, though former Italian Prime Minister Draghi subsequently called for a halt on application of AI High Risk provisions of the AI Act. This raises questions about whether advancing the European tech industry will require compromising the high protection standards that have defined the EU’s agenda, leaving digital sovereignty as a complex enterprise on the Commission’s to-do list…

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