The head of Belgium’s Centre for Cybersecurity (CCB) has said that Europe has “lost the internet” to the United States.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Miguel De Bruycker, who has been at the helm of the CCB since 2015, lamented Europe’s weaknesses in the cyber domain and argued that the continent is far behind the US in terms of its digital infrastructure.
“We’ve lost the whole cloud,” he told the FT. “We have lost the internet, let’s be honest. If I want my information 100 per cent in the EU...keep on dreaming.”
De Bruycker said it is “currently impossible” to store data fully in Europe as a result of US domination of digital infrastructure.
In practice, this means European countries like Belgium depend on close cooperation with mostly American private companies to manage their cyber defences.
According to De Bruycker, this is “not an enormous security problem”, but means Europe might find itself missing out on the benefits of cutting-edge technologies like cloud computing and AI. He believes the EU needs to focus its energies on strengthening its own capabilities.
“Instead of putting that focus on how can we stop the US ‘hyperscalers’, maybe we put our energy in . . . building up something by ourselves,” he said.
De Bruycker told the FT that legislation such as the EU’s AI Act, which regulates AI, is “blocking” European innovation.
