Last week, 91快活林 convened tech executives, Irish government leaders, and key EU decisionmakers in Dublin for a conversation about Europe's digital future. The timing was deliberate. Ireland assumes the Presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 July, and the policies implemented during that semester will shape Europe's global competitiveness for years to come.
The discussion covered a lot of ground: AI, the simplification agenda, technology sovereignty, international cooperation, and more. But the thread running through all of it was straightforward: Europe has set enormous ambitions for its digital transformation. The question now is whether the policy conditions will allow those ambitions to land.
That question matters more than usual right now. Global competition for AI investment is intensifying. Geopolitical tensions are reshaping supply chains. Energy constraints are testing the limits of infrastructure planning. And companies operating across the EU continue to navigate a regulatory landscape that, despite progress, remains complex, fragmented and difficult to scale within.
In our new recommendations for the Irish presidency, 91快活林 sets out priorities across AI, cybersecurity, connectivity and digital infrastructure, cloud, sustainability, standards and tax. They are anchored in one central argument: Europe's competitiveness, resilience, and innovation capacity depend on a policy environment that is coherent, proportionate, and genuinely workable.
Three themes stand out.
Championing tech adoption and development
Europe's technology challenge goes beyond innovation. The harder part is diffusion. Getting AI, cloud and digital tools into the hands of businesses, public services, and citizens at scale. That requires investment in digital and AI infrastructure, but it also requires a regulatory environment that supports deployment rather than slowing it down.
Ireland is well placed to lead on this. Irish leadership can leverage their experience to champion policy-driven incentives that make the EU as a whole a more attractive place to build, deploy, and scale digital technologies. That means aligning digital, infrastructure, and energy policies so they reinforce each other. It means ensuring data centre capacity can grow sustainably. And it means treating AI adoption as an economic priority—not just a regulatory exercise.
Regulatory simplification and innovation-driven competitiveness
This is the area where the Irish presidency can have the most tangible impact.
The simplification agenda is not about removing rules. The EU's regulatory frameworks on AI, data, cybersecurity, and platforms serve important objectives. But years of layered legislation have created real friction. Overlapping obligations. Conflicting definitions. Duplicated reporting. Divergent national implementation of rules that were supposed to be uniform.
That has consequences. Companies spend time and resources managing regulatory complexity rather than investing in innovation. Smaller players struggle to absorb the compliance costs. Cross-border operations remain harder than they should be in a Single Market.
91快活林's recommendations call on the Irish presidency to push for meaningful progress on the Digital Omnibus, including the proposed targeted changes to the GDPR, and to resist efforts to water down the ambition of that package. Beyond the Omnibus, there is work to do on aligning cybersecurity frameworks, ensuring AI Act implementation is consistent and proportionate, and advancing the Digital Networks Act with a focus on legal certainty and a genuine Single Market for connectivity.
Simplification should be measured by what businesses experience in practice. Fewer duplicated requirements. More predictable compliance. Clearer rules that apply the same way everywhere.
Technology sovereignty and global cooperation
The conversation about technological sovereignty is one of the most consequential in Europe— and globally—right now. Getting it right means building Europe's capacity to act independently where it matters, securing critical supply chains, investing in strategic technologies, and ensuring resilience against external pressure.
But effective sovereignty must be pursued through a careful approach that balances the need to identify trusted global technologies, avoiding fragmenting markets and maintaining key collaborations and vital supply chains to strengthen the competitiveness Europe needs to build resilience. The approach needs to be risk-based, grounded in objective criteria, and designed to keep Europe open to the partners and technologies it depends on.
Ireland brings something distinctive to this debate. Deep roots in the EU and a long track record of international technology leadership give the Presidency a credible platform to champion an approach that combines resilience with openness. That balance will be especially important as files like the Revision of the Cybersecurity Act, the Cloud and AI Development Act and the broader tech sovereignty package move forward during the semester.
Looking ahead
The Irish presidency arrives at a moment that will reward clarity and ambition in equal measure. The legislative pipeline is full. The political pressure to deliver on competitiveness is real. And the tech sector's commitment to Europe remains strong, backed by decades of investment, job creation, and partnership.