The EU’s digital sovereignty and quantum technologies: to what end?

Digital sovereignty, as a core EU policy objective, conveys the urgency of reducing dependencies, safeguarding European values, and regaining control over data, infrastructure, and technologies through regulation, strategic investments and geopolitical partnerships. However, it is a broad term encompassing different elements, and achieving some form of digital sovereignty remains questionable. This paper argues that digital sovereignty is less about what the term tends to convey and more about legitimising points of control. First, we examine the evolution of sovereignty and resulting regulation in relation to digital infrastructures and technologies. Second, we focus on the less-studied field of quantum technologies, which has become a recent anchor point for EU digital sovereignty policy. We highlight how, underlying the efforts to assert control and attain independence, digital sovereignty operates performatively to construct the European identity and produces tangible effects, such as the allocation of funds towards uncertain technological goals and select European actors.