- 2 ore fa
La commissaria UE Virkkunen esorta gli Stati Uniti a rispettare le regole digitali dell'UE
Intervista Euronews: Henna Virkkunen, commissaria UE per la sovranità tecnologica, su opportunità e rischi dell’AI, indagine su Grok di X e possibile divieto dei social ai minori.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2026/01/27/la-commissaria-ue-virkkunen-esorta-gli-stati-uniti-a-rispettare-le-regole-digitali-dellue
Abbonati, euronews è disponibile in 12 lingue.
Intervista Euronews: Henna Virkkunen, commissaria UE per la sovranità tecnologica, su opportunità e rischi dell’AI, indagine su Grok di X e possibile divieto dei social ai minori.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2026/01/27/la-commissaria-ue-virkkunen-esorta-gli-stati-uniti-a-rispettare-le-regole-digitali-dellue
Abbonati, euronews è disponibile in 12 lingue.
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00:00Welcome to the Europe Conversation, I'm Stefan Grobe.
00:12My guest today is Henna Virkunen, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission
00:17in charge of tech sovereignty, security and democracy.
00:22Welcome to the program.
00:23Thank you very much.
00:23So with a portfolio like this, we can basically talk about anything.
00:28And I want to start with the topic of artificial intelligence,
00:32which is increasingly shaping our lives as a society.
00:37Now, the European public, like in the US, by the way,
00:41is still very skeptical and a bit frightened.
00:45And that might be an understatement.
00:48Can you reassure people?
00:51When it comes to AI?
00:52Yeah, I think AI is something, like you said, when we speak about security, technology, democracy,
00:59that we can speak whatever topic under this.
01:01And AI is something that is very much, you know, connected all of these topics also to our security,
01:08but also to our democracies.
01:10And of course, now it's one of the most fastest developing technology.
01:15And in the European level, according to polls, we have made, for example, for the workers.
01:22So in the job market, also in the workplaces, most of the people in last year,
01:27they had anyway positive attitude towards AI, even that you were skeptical about how people see AI.
01:33So more than 60% of the people, they saw that AI has been helping them in their job.
01:39But of course, now there is a lot of expectations, of course, towards AI,
01:43that how fast it will develop, how it will change the things.
01:46But it's often happening with the new technologies that we have very high expectations
01:50that in the few years' time, everything will be totally changed.
01:53People are skeptical because they don't know what to expect.
01:56Feeling a little insecure.
01:57Yeah, and there's, of course, a discussion about this AI bubble all the time,
02:01that is there too many, too much expectations, that is really changing so much.
02:06But I think in the long term, AI will change a lot.
02:09But of course, in the shorter time, maybe not so much.
02:11Okay.
02:12So according to a recent study by a consultancy firm, Alex Partners,
02:1695% of CEOs said they expected to conduct layoffs in the next five years because of AI.
02:25Do you think this is realistic?
02:27We have very different, of course, also evaluations on this,
02:31that what it really means now for the jobs market,
02:34that does it mean that AI will replace a lot of jobs?
02:37It's always happening with the new technologies that some jobs are lost,
02:42but then new jobs are also created.
02:45But what is for sure it is that we have to really train our workforce and our citizens for AI.
02:51So it's very important to invest to digital skills and also to ICT expertise
02:56and also to AI skills.
02:58But 95% is, that's quite a number.
03:01There is a lot of expectations also, of course, that AI can replace many of the very manual jobs.
03:08But certainly there will be many jobs that AI can't replace the human beings.
03:14And of course, human beings are then needed to new kind of tasks.
03:18So globally, there are two AI superpowers, the United States and China.
03:25Europe is behind.
03:28How can we close this innovation gap?
03:32We have identified, of course, what are the obstacles in the European markets.
03:36and I think the good news is that we have everything what is needed to be competitive in AI.
03:42So we have the biggest amount of ICT and especially AI experts and engineers per capita in the European Union.
03:51We have great research and science in this field.
03:54We have also more than 7,000 startups who are developing and training AI in the European Union.
04:00But one clear obstacle is that they don't have access to computing capacity.
04:05And that's why we have been investing together with our member states to 19 AI factories,
04:09really to invest to supercomputers and give the access to our startups and to researchers to train AI.
04:16And now we will take also one more ambitious steps on this field.
04:20When we will launch in the coming weeks the AI gigafactories initiative.
04:24So we are building also four to five very massive supercomputers.
04:28So computing capacity has been one of the obstacles.
04:31And then it's also very important now to facilitate that we have also high quality data sets for AI developers.
04:38We are also working on that.
04:39And of course we also published recently our apply AI strategy.
04:43Because we see that Europe can be very successful when we are combining our traditional industries
04:49and our public sector with AI.
04:52So these kinds of user cases, we can be very successful there.
04:55I know you're a marathon runner.
04:58And those guys take the long view.
05:05So when do you think will Europe be able to really compete with the Americans and the Chinese?
05:12I think it's important that we are building to our own strengths also when it comes to competitiveness and technologies.
05:18And Europe has been always very open for global investors and global technologies as well.
05:28And that's why we don't have so much own capacity in all critical fields when it comes to technologies.
05:33And we have clearly identified that AI is one critical technology where we have to build up our own capacity.
05:40Together with AI, also with semiconductors, cyber security technologies.
05:45These are very critical technologies.
05:47You've said once that on this topic of new technologies, Europe must lead, not follow.
05:54Can Europe do that alone?
05:56And who are our partners and allies?
05:59That is very important when we speak about technological sovereignty, that we don't mean with that that we are planning to do everything by our own somehow in isolation.
06:11It's not even realistic.
06:13And we see also that nobody can't be competitive alone.
06:16So for Europe, it's very important that we are building up our own capacity in these critical fields, but also that we have like-minded partners.
06:24And we have digital partnerships with several countries and AI is one of the key topics also in these partnerships.
06:30Of course, USA has been always our most important partner when it comes to security and technology economy.
06:37But also we have digital partnership with South Korea, also with Japan, also with Canada, with India.
06:45We have also a technology council with them.
06:47And of course, we are now working more and more again with UK after Brexit and also with Brazil, for example.
06:56We just also concluded our Mercosur deal with Brazil and its neighboring countries.
07:01It's interesting that you mentioned the United States as the first ally, because this is our partner with which we have sometimes locked horns when it comes to technology.
07:13What is the right strategy to push back against the Trump administration here and send a message to Washington and to the European people that Europe will not negotiate its values?
07:26When it comes to digital rules, I think you especially thought about this part of our partnership.
07:34When we speak about democracies like European Union and USA, I think democratic countries and friends, we can handle that kind of differences in our rules with respect.
07:48And we can understand that we have different rules in some areas.
07:51And when it comes to our digital rules, Europeans are very committed to our rules because we want to make sure that we have a fair and safe democratic environment also when it comes to digital environment.
08:03So we want to make sure that everything what is illegal in our societies, it's also illegal online and it's very clear line in the European Union and USA tech companies.
08:14They understand very well, of course, that they have to they have to follow our rules when they are doing business in Europe and operating here.
08:22We have to remember that for the USA and big tech, Europe is the biggest external market.
08:30And for some of them, Europe is the biggest market in the world.
08:33For example, Instagram is having 100 million users more in Europe than in USA.
08:38When you talk to US officials, do they understand the European point of view?
08:43Do they understand the reasoning behind European legislation?
08:48I think often in the USA side, there has been now the misunderstanding that we are somehow focusing only to USA companies with our rules.
08:59And of course, we know that this is not the case.
09:01So it's always very important, of course, to explain that we have the same rules for everybody.
09:06So for European companies, for Asian companies, from USA companies, this is very fair.
09:10Everybody has the same rules who are operating and doing business in Europe.
09:14So we are not somehow targeting to USA companies.
09:17Now, the most prominent case, obviously, is EU versus Elon Musk's chat box, ex-chat box, GROC.
09:27On Monday, the European Commission announced the launch of an investigation into the company after the outcry at the platform's failure to prevent the creation of sexually explicit images of women, real people, women and children.
09:48Walk us through the process.
09:50What happens next?
09:52And where are we going?
09:54We have already had investigation open against X and especially focusing to X recommender system.
10:04And now we were extending this investigation with the new decision because also X has informed that they are now integrating more and more GROC to their recommender system.
10:16So the AI is running very much the recommender system of X and of course it has impacts.
10:22So we will investigate now further recommender system of X and also we opened investigations especially about this that how X is now and has been really assessing and mitigating the systematic risks what GROC is posing to this online service.
10:40So this is obligation under our digital service act that always online platforms that they have to assess and mitigate all the time the risks what they are posing.
10:49For example, for example, for example, for example, for example, for people's well-being for our democratic civic discourses, for the electoral processes.
10:56So this is a really obligation under DSA.
10:59So we opened now the investigation.
11:01We are collecting now evidence from the X and CROC side.
11:05Already before Christmas we made the decision that X has to now retain all the documents what they have connected to CROC and X.
11:14And it's possible that we are having like interviews and we are collecting material and evidence and really looking how X has been taking its obligations under DSA.
11:26And normally when we are carrying investigations, I have to maybe also remind that we have investigations going on against 10 online platforms currently.
11:37So normally when we are gathering evidence, we are coming to our preliminary findings.
11:44And this is the step when the online platform that they have to comply with our rules.
11:49And if they are not, then the next step is really non-compliance decision.
11:53Or then we are accepting their commitments to change the behavior and design of the platform.
11:58Would you say that the European Union and the United States have a rocky relationship when it comes to new technologies?
12:05We have some different views, especially we know that the discussion of freedom of speech has been like dominating very much our digital rules.
12:17And I think it's also very important to always underline that we are fully respecting freedom of speech and expression in our digital services act.
12:26But in the European Union also, when we speak about freedom of speech, there is also limits because the other people, they have also their own fundamental rights.
12:37So some peoples like freedom of speech can't go over all the other people's rights also.
12:44So we have also balance here.
12:46But we have also many of the common fields of interest when it comes to digital rules as well.
12:53For example, protection of minors.
12:55Protection of minors is something that in USA, there is also a lot of discussion about it.
13:01And I would say that all over the world and also in the European Union, because we see that really the online platforms, many of them, they have really changed to be more and more addictive.
13:12So especially the young people, they are using a lot of time online and also the content, what is not shown for them, it's not fitting for their age often.
13:22Also under DSA, we have clear application for the online platforms that when minors are using these services, very high level of privacy, security and safety have to be insured for the minors.
13:34And this is exactly a point where we are now investigating online platforms.
13:37But this is something that we have also very much common interest with USA when it comes to online platforms.
13:44And then everything that is related, for example, to innovations in the fields of AI, 5G, 6G, cybersecurity also.
13:54So we have many topics also where we are working very closely with USA.
13:57Okay, let's bring in China, if I may.
14:03Europe faces significant reliance on Chinese technology, especially in green energy, rare earths, solar, to name batteries, to name a few, and digital sectors.
14:16Now, these are strategic vulnerabilities in supply chains for critical materials that could risk economic disruption and security, raise security concerns.
14:29How much time will it take to get rid of these vulnerabilities?
14:33This is not happening overnight.
14:37As we know, Europe has been very open for global investors and also global businesses.
14:44And our industry has also built it a very long global value chains and supply chains.
14:50And I think the first wake-up call was really during the COVID pandemic, because then we really realized that how dependent we were in some critical sector of dirt countries when there was many like travel restrictions posed and so on.
15:06And suddenly we didn't get the components and raw materials what we needed.
15:10I think it was the first wake-up call really for that.
15:13And after that, when Russia started also full-scale war against Ukraine, we saw also how dependent some European countries were on Russian energy.
15:22And it took some years really also to change the path.
15:26But now we are really looking at where we have the critical dependencies and how to make sure that we can also replace it with our own production, but also that we can have partners all over the world that we are never dependent on.
15:41On one country or one source when it comes to some very critical fields of technologies.
15:46And of course, semiconductors, we know that it's very vulnerable, the supply chain there, because the supply chains, they are very global and they are very optimized.
15:55So often one chip can travel thousands of kilometers before it's finalized.
16:00So if something is happening, some kind of incident in one part of the supply chain, it's causing damages all over the world.
16:08Will Europe ever be able to get on an evil level with China?
16:14Again, I would say that we have to build to our own strengths when we look at our competitiveness and technological sovereignty.
16:22And it means that we have to build our own capacity, but also we need partners globally.
16:29And when it comes to technological sovereignty, it means that we have freedom always to choose with who and how we are operating, that we are not dependent on one country, one company.
16:43We are not forced to one solution, that we have always alternatives.
16:47All right. Different topic. Are you in favor of social media bans for kids, as planned by Emmanuel Macron in France?
16:57I think that Internet is nowadays a very important part of our everyday life and society.
17:06And it's also, it's very important to build up our digital skills.
17:10But then in which age you can enter the social media, now the minimum level in the European level is very much 13 years.
17:19It comes to our GDPR.
17:21And we are currently now investigating online platforms that how they are checking the age of the user, because we know that some very small kids, they have already their own social media accounts.
17:32And now the member states are discussing that, what is the right age really for that.
17:38But we are focusing in our investigations now that online platforms are really taking their responsibility, that high level of safety, security and privacy is insured for our minors, because it's obligation, our DSA.
17:52And in the same time, we are also now investigating how the online platforms are really checking the age of the user.
17:58And we have certain high risk services also.
18:03And there we have to be very strict that they are really checking the age.
18:06When we speak about gambling, when we speak about adult platforms or selling alcohol or cigarettes.
18:14So these are very high risk services.
18:17And there we have to be sure that the platforms are really verifying the age of the user.
18:22But under that, when it's not so high risk services, we have to really look at what kind of technologies are used and how we will set also the minimum age there.
18:33Because, of course, it means that if we have very strict rules here, then everybody should verify their age.
18:40And in the same time, we shouldn't have the situation that you have to give your personal data for online platform.
18:46So we are also working now with the age verification tool, that you can also verify your age without giving your own personal data.
18:55Commissioner, we're living in challenging, uncertain times.
18:59And our conversation sort of reflected that.
19:02Now, as we are still at the beginning of the year, 2026, give me one reason why we should all be optimistic.
19:10I think we should be very optimistic because we have said from the European Union side now many times that this is really the independence moment of European Union.
19:22So that we have to really build up our own capacity and competitiveness when it comes to defense, security, also technologies, economy.
19:31And we have everything what is needed to be strong in all these fields.
19:36So when we are acting now together with speed, we can be very strong and competitive in the coming years.
19:43All right.
19:45Henna Wirkunen, EU Commissioner for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy.
19:50Thanks so much for coming on the show.
19:51Great conversation.
19:53Thank you.
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