Christopher Fouquet, chief executive of ASML, Europe's top technology company, said he welcomed most of the recommendations put forward by the European Commission this week to enhance European technology sovereignty, but expressed caution about the Commission's plan to step in to guide or supervise "strategic projects" that enjoy state aid.
Fouquet posted on the social platform LinkedIn that such "strategic projects" must fundamentally respond to the needs of the industry itself, and are more suitable to be proposed by enterprises rather than top-down designs by administrative agencies. He emphasized that excessive complexity and bureaucracy should be avoided and more reliance should be placed on the professional capabilities of the private sector.
It was one of the first public responses to the plan from leading European industry figures. The plan is seen as a core measure by Brussels to narrow the gap between the EU and the United States and Asia in the field of science and technology. The plan includes measures to stimulate demand for locally produced chips and local cloud services in Europe to support the competitiveness of local supply chains.
Fouquet believes that the European Commission's shift in policy focus to demand-oriented is a positive signal. In his view, policymakers should provide frameworks and support, but should leave more power over specific project design and execution to enterprises to ensure that resource allocation meets actual market needs.
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