Public Procurement as a Lever of Power for Europe

Public investment must complement private capital to build European sovereignty and competitiveness. Directed toward European players, it can create a multiplier effect on our productive fabric and support innovation, argue a collective of business leaders and parliamentarians.

Published on September 9, Les Échos

In a world where digital technologies dictate the power of nations, public procurement is a decisive lever for safeguarding our strategic autonomy and strengthening competitive industrial sectors. According to the European Court of Auditors, public procurement contributes the equivalent of 14% of French GDP—roughly €400 billion. Its importance goes well beyond financial weight: it shapes innovation, sustains employment, and fosters robust industrial ecosystems.

Lack of visibility

Faced with growing dependence on non-European technologies—cloud, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence—it is becoming imperative to better orient public purchasing in order to build our autonomy and design a sovereign, long-term industrial vision.

The Draghi report on European competitiveness underscores how public investment must complement private capital to stimulate innovation and support an ambitious industrial policy. This requires concrete measures: in the field of cloud services, for example, it recommends tenders with strict conditions to ensure that the security and encryption of data remain under European control.

In line with this European assessment, the French Senate released in July the conclusions of its fact-finding commission on the actual costs and modalities of public procurement, and on how effectively it stimulates the French economy. The report highlights a lack of clarity and strategic oversight, which limits procurement’s impact on growth. Two bills are now expected to correct these shortcomings and finally align our framework with the objectives of strategic autonomy and competitiveness.

The Buy American Act

As economist Mariana Mazzucato emphasizes, the State should not merely correct market failures: it can also act as a patient, strategic investor, steering public procurement toward projects with strong potential for innovation and industrial spillovers. Taking inspiration from DARPA to fund breakthrough innovation is crucial, but not enough: action is also needed in broader consumer markets, where the industrial multiplier effect is faster.

The United States understood this long ago. The Buy American Act, in force since 1933, obliges the federal government to purchase American. This protectionist dynamic is now reinforced by the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, and by the July 2025 trade framework agreement between the U.S. and the European Union, which establishes a 15% tariff on most European products exported to the U.S.—with no equivalent tariff on American imports.

A lever of sovereignty

In this context, continuing to defend unconditional openness is no longer tenable. Europeans must, wherever possible, direct public procurement toward European alternatives and support our industrial players, so as to foster the emergence of solutions capable of meeting demand.

The European Commission must fully embrace the logic of reciprocity: our public markets can no longer remain naively open to those who close theirs. In this spirit, since 2023, the European Union has had at its disposal an anti-coercion instrument, allowing the exclusion of companies from third countries from our tenders when those countries exert unjustified economic pressure. This is a major step forward: the ability to restrict access to European public markets—particularly for strategic digital services such as cloud computing—must become a credible response to any attempt at economic blackmail, in the same way as the new American trade barriers or the threat of a Starlink cutoff in Ukraine.

In today’s fragmented value chains, public procurement must once again serve as a lever of industrial power and sovereignty: directed toward European players, it should generate a multiplier effect across our productive fabric, support innovation, create skilled jobs, and secure control over our technologies and sensitive data. This is the condition for preserving our strategic autonomy and guaranteeing the long-term competitiveness of our industrial sectors.

Signatories of this op-ed:

Guillaume Poupard, Co-President of the National Council for Artificial Intelligence and Digital
Michel Paulin, Chair of the Strategic Committee for “Trusted Software and Digital Solutions”
Olivier Vallet, CEO of Docaposte
Jean-Noël de Galzain, CEO of Wallix and Chair of Hexatrust
David Buhan, CEO of Advens
General Marc Watin-Augouard, Founder of the InCyber Forum
Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, Member of the European Parliament (Renew)
Marina Ferrari, Member of Parliament (Les Démocrates)
Anne le Henanff, Member of Parliament (Horizons et Indépendants)
Virginie Duby-Muller, Member of Parliament (Droite Républicaine)
Patrick Hetzel, Member of Parliament (Droite Républicaine)
Thomas Gassilloud, Member of Parliament (Renaissance)
Philippe Latombe, Member of Parliament (Les Démocrates)
Catherine Morin-Desailly, Senator (Union Centriste)
Vanina Paoli-Gagin, Senator (Les Indépendants – République et Territoires)
Amel Gacquerre, Senator (Union Centriste)
Patrick Chaize, Senator (Les Républicains)
Olivier Cadic, Senator (Union Centriste)
Alain Bouille, General Delegate of CESIN
Jean-Pierre la Hausse de Lalouvière, President of eFutura
Guillaume Tissier, Partner at Forward Global and CEO of the InCyber Forum
Constance Le Grip, Member of Parliament (Ensemble pour la République)
Simon Uzenat, Senator (Socialist, Ecologist and Republican Group)