I have been writing this blog for over twenty years. One thing I have found is that I am either scraping for things to write about for there. Is a glut of stories waiting to be told. And yes, we are in a glut phase. You might think that something called the European Technological Sovereignty Package is something that could happily be left aside but I think this is one of the most important of the many European legislative initiatives.

Anyway, on 3 June 2026, the European Commission published what it is calling the European Technological Sovereignty Package [1]. It is a substantial set of legislative proposals and strategic commitments designed to reduce Europe’s dependence on technology built and controlled outside the EU – primarily in the United States and China. The announcement does not mention education once. And yet, for anyone working in schools, colleges, or training institutions, it deserves careful attention.

The package has four components. The Chips Act 2.0 extends the original 2023 legislation to build European capacity in the advanced semiconductors that power AI systems. The Cloud and AI Development Act aims to triple EU data centre capacity within seven years and introduces a single European framework for assessing the sovereignty of cloud and AI services. The Open Source Strategy commits the Commission to scaling up European open-source alternatives in AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and internet technologies, with a specific push for greater use of open source in public administrations. Finally, a Strategic Roadmap for AI in Energy addresses the sustainability challenge of powering all this new digital infrastructure [1] [2].

The political framing is explicit. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that “we cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure” [1]. The subtext is clear: Europe currently relies heavily on non-European suppliers for the core digital infrastructure that underpins its public services, its economy, and increasingly its classrooms. This package is the Commission’s attempt to change that structural dependency over the medium term.

Why this matters for education

The most immediately relevant strand for educators is the Open Source Strategy. The commitment to promoting open-source solutions in public administrations – backed by procurement guidelines and interoperability standards – is likely, over time, to extend to publicly funded educational institutions. Schools, colleges, and universities are public bodies, and the direction of travel in EU digital policy has consistently been toward treating them as part of the same digital infrastructure ecosystem as hospitals and government offices. If that logic holds, institutions may find themselves with access to European-built, openly licensed AI and digital tools, rather than being structurally dependent on a small number of large commercial platforms whose terms of service, data practices, and pricing are set elsewhere.

This is not a trivial point. The question of which AI tools educators use with learners – and who controls the data those tools generate – is one of the most pressing practical questions in education right now. A European open-source ecosystem for AI in education would not automatically solve that problem, but it would change the landscape of available options and the leverage that institutions have in procurement decisions.

The Cloud and AI Development Act introduces a sovereignty assessment framework that will affect how public bodies procure and use cloud and AI services. Many of the platforms that schools and training providers currently use for learning management, student data, and increasingly AI-assisted learning sit on infrastructure hosted outside the EU, governed by non-European law. As this framework develops, institutions will need to think more carefully about where their data lives and what obligations they have under both EU data protection law and any new sovereignty requirements. For VET providers and schools already navigating GDPR compliance, this adds another layer of consideration – but also, potentially, a clearer set of European alternatives to evaluate.

The skills question nobody is asking loudly enough

The broader skills dimension of this package is largely implicit, and that is a problem worth naming. The Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan, which this package is designed to accelerate, identifies skills as one of its four foundational pillars alongside computing infrastructure, data, and AI adoption [1]. The ambition to make Europe a global leader in AI development only makes sense if there are enough people trained to build, deploy, critically evaluate, and responsibly govern these technologies. That pipeline runs directly through education.

What is striking is how rarely industrial and digital sovereignty announcements of this kind engage seriously with the education and training systems that are supposed to produce the human capacity they depend on. The package talks about investing in open-source skills and supporting start-ups, but the deeper question — how do we ensure that teachers, trainers, and learners across Europe develop genuine AI literacy rather than passive consumption of tools built elsewhere – is left largely unaddressed. That gap is where educators, researchers, and policymakers in VET and schools need to make their voices heard.

This is, in the end, a supply-side industrial policy announcement. Its immediate effects will be felt in data centres, semiconductor fabs, and procurement offices rather than classrooms. But the downstream consequences for what digital tools educators use, how student data is governed, what skills are prioritised in curricula, and what kind of AI-enabled learning environment European students inhabit over the next decade are real and significant. It is worth reading, worth tracking, and worth engaging with – even if the Commission has not yet thought to invite educators to the table.

References

[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1187 “European Commission. “Commission proposes tech sovereignty package to strengthen Europe’s digital autonomy and resilience.” Press release, 3 June 2026.”

[2]: https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/strengthening-europes-tech-sovereignty-2026-06-03_en “European Commission. “Strengthening Europe’s tech sovereignty.” News article, 3 June 2026.”