Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on June 2 that Poland will introduce a “sovereignty test” for significant government purchases of technology solutions, speaking at the European Financial Congress in Sopot, northern Poland. Under the measure, state procurement of major technology systems must demonstrate compliance with technological sovereignty principles; the government will also publish annual reports documenting progress toward IT independence as a public accountability mechanism. Tusk described the dependency as having reached an existential threshold: “At this point, the scale of this dependency — and I’m referring here to the relationship between the state and the digital sphere — has reached such proportions that it must prompt serious economic, institutional, and organisational reflection.” Separately, the government announced it will direct nearly €500 million, mostly from European funds, to AI laboratory equipment in schools, with roughly 8,000 primary schools and 4,000 high schools expected to benefit.
The announcements reflect Poland’s effort to reduce reliance on a narrow group of foreign technology suppliers while pushing for coordinated EU-level standards — a role the country has leaned into during its rotating EU Council presidency. Tusk pointed to France, Denmark, and Germany as countries pursuing comparable sovereignty strategies. The speech comes as the EU’s own AI infrastructure ambitions are under pressure: its €20 billion AI gigafactory programme has faced delays and funding gaps, shifting the burden toward national-level action. Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs has separately outlined plans to develop Polish-language large models and establish two national AI factories in Poznań and Kraków. The broader European backdrop is fractious: Germany and Spain are currently leading opposition to European Commission plans to exclude Chinese suppliers from telecom networks, creating visible fault lines between larger economies with deep commercial ties to China and smaller, more security-focused members.