“We urge you to urge us to stop”. Loved discussing this “second coming” of the frontier lab’s “regulate us please” with @ShaoulSussman, who was Director of Litigation at the @FTC when the same request went around first time…. Link here to #EscapeForward podcast:

“AI Poses an Existential Risk to Humanity” – TAKE 2 with Shaoul Sussman

Former Litigation Director, US Federal Trade Commission, and Founding Partner, Simonsen & Sussman LLP

substack.com

Join us on 16 October for an insightful conversation on European competition with Anthony Whelan, Director General of DG Competition, @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social & @tomasoduso.bsky.social 📆5:00 PM - 6:30 PM (CEST) | Online Register now: ow.ly/uWVn50ZS7Qk

substack.com/@ccaffarra/n...

European Regulators Want a Say on “Pacing the Frontier” – Do We Understand the Game? Let’s Stay Focused on Building

The mission Europe must be focused on, aggressively, right now, is to rescue itself from the 20-year incantation in which we did not build the proverbial bean but tried instead to regulate digital pla...

substack.com

Had a long career in antitrust then moved onto a “second mountain” (tech/AI/sovereignty). Dismayed European antitrust is so barren. Europe is in a difficult place, yet we persevere w technocratic endeavour fiercely protected by self-righteous stakeholders. www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/mo...

Modernizing European Competition Policy: Dead on Arrival | PYMNTS.com

By: Cristina Caffarra   The world we live in is convulsed by the most extraordinarily far-reaching technological transformation, poised to either

pymnts.com

escapeforward.substack.com/p/ai-soverei...

AI Sovereignty is Stack Control, not Weight-of-Origin Fetishism

Until just a few weeks ago, the default assumption in Brussels and in most European capitals had become that Europe, as a laggard in local model development, had to submit to United States frontier la...

escapeforward.substack.com

The title reads like a politician’s typical exhortation. The original English (in /2) is spicier, whole point is Europe misunderstood the nature of Big Tech power: thought it was bad behaviour and we could teach them manners with regulation - was hard infrastructure instead. Total failure 1/2

L’Europe doit recommencer à construire

Pendant quinze ans, nous avons cherché à réguler la puissance technologique américaine plutôt que bâtir la nôtre. Il est temps de changer de doctrine.

legrandcontinent.eu

www.techpolicy.press/the-sovereig...

The ‘Sovereignty’ Narratives That Don’t Help Europe

Europe has the talent, the money and the capability to rise, writes Cristina Caffarra.

techpolicy.press

escapeforward.substack.com/p/on-the-pol...

On the Political Economy of European Big Tech Regulation

The latest EC fine to Google for “DMA violations” (“self preferencing” of search results and restrictions to app developers seeking to “link out” of the Google PlayStore) elicited the usual chorus of ...

escapeforward.substack.com

𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗔𝗜 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲. We can have a bright AI future leveraging domain expertise in mechanics, automation, engineering, high-quality data, open-source & next-gen AI. 𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀.

Magical Thinking Won’t Make Europe an AI Power

Cristina Caffarra urges policymakers to resist industry lobbying and bolster the continent’s technological independence.

project-syndicate.org

Beware the unholy alliance against Séjourné’s IAA (parts of industry, US anonymous officials, neoliberal WTO relics in our think tanks) is animated by hyperscalers hiding the ball and throwing tonnes of lobbying against #digital_sovereignty.

Sabotaging Europe’s Tech Efforts: Beware Neoliberal Relics Carrying Water for Hyperscalers

Making and Building in Europe is the Critical Path for Our Tech Future

substack.com

So where is all the hysteria “they want to destroy European democracy!” “they revealed their true colours and Europe is their enemy!” - now? Said a million times they are Europhiles. Need to get this, enough moral high horse.

🎙️ 📣 Special 𝗘𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘄>𝗿𝗱 podcast - some of my highlights from a great day: "𝗥𝗲𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲’𝘀 𝗦𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘁𝘆", Brussels 28 January. 500 people in the room, thousand online, huge energy, enthusiasm & pent up emotion FOR EUROPE. 🇪🇺 Here distilled if you missed it escape-forward.com/2026/02/13/r...

Rebuilding Europe – The Highlights

Cristina Caffarra picks out the highlights and her key takeaways from the landmark “Rebuilding European Sovereignty” Conference – Brussels 28 January 2026.

escape-forward.com

On 28 January, @bcoeure.bsky.social will join the closing session “Regulation, Deregulation, “Get Transactional”: European Rules in the Eye of the Storm” at “BruxConference 2026: Rebuilding Europe’s Sovereignty” organized by @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social in Brussels. bruxconference2026.com

Curtain raiser for my conference on Wednesday. Note: it’s spicy. open.substack.com/pub/escapefo...

“Rebuilding Europe’s Sovereignty”

Conference “Mood Board”

open.substack.com

All the coverage of the "digital euro" drives me nuts. The idea that we need "an electronic equivalent to cash: a digital currency that works in stores, online and in peer-to-peer transactions" sounds novel until you realise... we already have it! WE HAVE DIGITAL EUROS PEOPLE! THEY EXIST!

Ruffling a few feathers for the New Year… the takes out there on #EuroStack are typically terrible, so here goes some weekend read…

Again: EuroStack is an Industrial Project

Among so many “bad takes”, let’s go back to base with a restatement of what the most urgent “mission” should be.

open.substack.com

Good piece indeed thanks Marloes de Koning @nrc.nl. The key point is we absolutely totally are on the move. Europeans are amazing. Not an ounce of anti-American sentiment, just admiration or my part. We left a vacuum and they rolled in. Now we need to stand up and build, fast.

Eskild Wikkeling 🏴‍☠️@dutchshantyman.eskild.nl · 9mo ago

Goed artikel over @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social die de Europese #digitalsovereignty en een #eurostack aanjaagt. archive.today/0StUK

Not popular for sure with this crowd, but posting anyway. escapeforward.substack.com/p/a-shock-en...

Good recognition of #EuroStack in Tagesspiegel as one of the developments that shaped 2025. Europe has the talent, the capabilities and the capital: 2026 will go “long on Europe” in digital. In great company. @tspbackground.bsky.social

But no one ever said it would be. Where do all these strawmen and hyperscaler astroturfing come from? Honestly. I will need to write on #EuroStack as all the takes on here are so bad.

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Tech sovereignty isn’t about swapping US hyperscalers for local monopolies, writes David Eaves. That just recreates dependency. Real agency comes from interoperability, de facto standards, and procurement that makes switching cloud providers simple, says Eaves.

Good, right tone. Let’s be transactional too, not moralizing. And btw, civil society friends: he’s talking here of manufacturing, defence, trade. Not of your usual obsession with US social media. Frankly, praising the “courage” of our irrelevant antitrust regulators, cringe.

(((Tendar)))@tendar.bsky.social · 10mo ago

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on the end of the Pax Americana, yesterday in Munich, Germany. “Dear friends, the decades of the Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe, and for us in Germany, as well. It no longer exists as we know it. And nostalgia won’t change that.

Great wide-ranging discussion of Europe’s predicament. Includes talk of “Draghi mission” & why it’s unclear what competition policy shld be doing anymore: “Europe drunk kool-aid of hard-nosed neoliberalism”. Yet underachieved & has no idea where to turn 1/ paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-wi...

Talking With Adam Tooze

About Europe, Germany's malaise, and more

paulkrugman.substack.com

𝗥𝗲𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲’𝘀 𝗦𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘁𝘆: the ONLY conversation to have in Europe right now. Stop the embarrassing hysteria on the U.S. Administration’s National Security Strategy. Focus on the work WE have got to do. Registration now open, free to all, in person and online. 1/2

🚞 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙣𝙩 organised their 3rd exceptional Summit on Europe's highest peak (w premium trip to Cervinia/Matterhorn 🚠). Urgent discussion of Europe's woes. Fragmentation, war on Eastern flank, China eating our lunch, democracy, AI. But do we have any answers? plans? leadership? Not really. 1/

The EC makes these kinds of “we matter! we will enforce!” statements every few weeks. Because, the rule of law. Zero credible. But reality is, it does not really matter in the scheme of things.

#Escape_Forward Thanksgiving talk with the one and only Cory Doctorow 🧨 Pathologies of #Enshittification, how we got here, what it would take to cure it. …a v different prognosis on the role of antitrust & regulation: Cory remains an optimist, for me the sooner we get off that monorail the better

Just ahead of the #BerlinSummit on #European_Digital_Sovereignty on 18 November, a scintillating conversation on “Europe’s Quest for Digital Emancipation” w two of the most influential “cage rattlers” around, fully intent on awakening European tech: Rafael Laguna & Dietmar Harhoff.** 1/ Link below

Europe’s Quest for Digital Emancipation: Possible & Necessary

Europe is in the throws of an accelerating, urgent mobilisation around “digital sovereignty” – which does not mean protectionism and does not mean autarky: instead, an industrial project – le…

escape-forward.com

🎙️ “Escape Forward” new podcast w the great 𝗥𝗢𝗛𝗜𝗧 𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗣𝗥𝗔 just out: “𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝗸𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿: 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀” 1/ escapeforward.substack.com/p/the-new-to...

In line w Aghion’s message: “𝗜𝗻 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲, 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆. 𝗜 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘄𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲, 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗔𝗜, 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵.” Amen escapeforward.substack.com/p/the-new-ge...

The New Geoeconomics of Hard Power Requires New Tools. Will Europe Update?

This piece originates from a request by ProMarket to contribute to a forthcoming online symposium on the question: “Does a Globalized Economy Require Big Business?”.

escapeforward.substack.com

Rich discussion of AI #acquihires (when are they a problem, what shld antitrust do?) turned into broader debate on “do we have a competition problem w Al & what is it?” Fireside w J Kanter, fab panel @florianederer.bsky.social @igorletina.bsky.social @lugaricano.bsky.social I Marinescu, H Zenger 1/