ASML: CEO Christophe Fouquet signs an open letter together with European technology companies

Europe is losing global competitiveness every day. We are facing a crisis that we have largely caused ourselves – and that we can therefore overcome. This is not just an economic problem; it threatens our social cohesion and tests the very foundations of our future prosperity and technological sovereignty.

In a time of unprecedented geopolitical and technological change, the decisions of the coming months and years will determine whether Europe can compete and prosper in the decades ahead.

As CEOs of technology companies at the heart of today’s transformation, we are witnessing first-hand how the next wave of technological change is emerging at record speed – from semiconductors and advanced connectivity to aerospace, defense and AI. These industries are central not only to Europe’s economic strength, but also to its ability to help shape the future.

As European technology developers representing some of the continent’s leading innovators across the fundamental technology sector, we recognize our responsibility to help build that future.

Taken together, our companies generate €417 billion in revenue and have a market capitalization of almost €1.1 trillion. We provide over 957,000 high-tech jobs worldwide, invest over 40 billion euros annually in research and development and hold 213,000 patents worldwide. We are at the core of the powerful ecosystems that form the foundation of Europe’s technological sovereignty, creating a unique opportunity for Europe to lead the next phase of technological change.

Over the past two decades, the focus has been on building the digital world. However, the next phase of innovation will be shaped by how digital capabilities are applied in the real world – across industries, infrastructure and entire economies. To create value, technologies such as AI must be connected to the physical systems they are designed to improve.

Europe has the people, the ecosystems and the technology to lead in this next phase. But all too often we fail to translate this position into economies of scale. Instead, we are faced with fragmented markets and subsidized competitors that have very strong market penetration in the EU. Companies in Europe face stifling, unnecessarily complex and often overlapping regulations that make it incredibly difficult to keep up with the pace of technological progress.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the digital sector. More than three years after the “ChatGPT moment”, Europe is still debating regulation, while others have long since shifted their focus to scaling AI in physical systems and robotics. We need to ensure that we are not regulating ahead of innovation, but rather shaping the standards of tomorrow through build and deployment.

However, we see an openness to change. Initiatives such as the Draghi and Letta reports and the Commission’s competitiveness agenda are a clear acknowledgement that Europe needs to act differently. And we are ready to support European policymakers in responding to the urgency of the moment.

We need to capitalize on the momentum created by current efforts to reduce and simplify European digital regulations so that they act as agile guardrails – rather than rigid, detailed requirements – to keep pace with the speed of technological development. In practice, this means preserving the contractual freedom needed to create data spaces, protect intellectual property and enable industrial AI applications without overlapping constraints.

Achieving Europe’s strategic goals requires robust, market-oriented support from sector policy. European policies, in close coordination with national strategies, must support pioneering flagship projects and mobilize private capital by fully realizing the Savings and Investment Union. We must also reform competition and M&A regimes to enable the strategic consolidation and scale needed to compete globally.

Building strategic resilience also means driving the use of trusted technologies and breaking down civil-military silos to accelerate dual-use innovation. Crucially, true prosperity and resilience rests on the creation and control of intellectual property, not just its consumption; long-term sovereignty requires that we strongly support and scale indigenous European innovation while promoting the skills and mobility of our workforce.

Finally, all of this must be underpinned by a coherent geo-economic strategy that promotes a unified industrial and trade approach that protects European interests while enabling our businesses to succeed internationally. To make this happen, we need a dedicated forum where business and political leaders can continuously coordinate to ensure that policies are based on industrial reality and global market dynamics.

We are deeply convinced of the creativity and innovation potential of Europeans. But to truly harness this potential and catch up with global competitors, we need to focus less on ambition alone and more on delivery – creating the conditions that allow us to turn Europe’s technological strengths into real progress.

The European Commission under President von der Leyen has taken important first steps in this direction. Now, more than ever, we need to come together as technology developers and policy makers to turn these ambitions into action.

The priority now is not only to nurture entire strategic ecosystems – from research to start-ups to global market leaders – but also to develop and scale the next generation of technologies, including industrial AI applications, in Europe and for the world. 

We are ready to do our part and support those European leaders who are willing to take bold action. The time is ripe. Let’s face this challenge together.

Christophe Fouquet (ASML)
Guillaume Faury (Airbus)
Börje Ekholm (Ericsson)
Arthur Mensch (Mistral AI)
Justin Hotard (Nokia)
Christian Klein (SAP)
Roland Busch (Siemens)

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Further links

👉 www.asml.com  

Photo: unsplash