Harnessing Europe’s Narrative Power to Shape the Digital Future

The world’s collective capacity to solve global problems through multilateral cooperation is in many places gridlocked; some even say it is in crisis. Instead, minilateral formats and ad hoc coalitions have proliferated over the last decade. These forums join the many regional organizations and informal multilateral formats. In this respect, the field of digital transformation is no different from security or trade. The growing importance of the digital domain for innovation, competitiveness, and national security has turned it into a marketplace of ideas and a sphere of geopolitical competition.

The conflicting visions of the digital future that result from these struggles have led to a proliferation of values-driven coalitions of the willing and, in turn, more organizational fragmentation and ideological competition. Russia has rallied the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and like-minded countries around the idea of an international treaty to govern state relations in cyberspace. The Group of Seventy-Seven (G77) and China have aligned their position on digital issues around the centrality of state sovereignty in global governance. Meanwhile, the United States has chosen the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to internationalize its idea of trusted connectivity.

Despite these different visions, ideas, and organizational blueprints, UN members agreed at the September 2024 UN Summit of the Future to adopt the Global Digital Compact (GDC) for the global governance of digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI). The launch of the compact, which coexists with other initiatives, raises the question of whether its implementation might prevent further fragmentation of the internet and the emergence of multiple digital spaces. Although the compact outlines shared principles for an open, free, and secure digital future for all, the negotiations on the document’s consecutive drafts revealed that implementing the agreement will be a real test of the effectiveness of multilateral cooperation. Attempts by the G77 and China to change the balance between the UN’s three key pillars—peace and security, human rights, and development—show that a shared approach to implementing the compact will be challenging.

The policy boundaries of many digital issues, such as the governance of AI, are still in flux. This situation opens a window of opportunity for the EU to lead. Carnegie’s Stefan Lehne has argued that in the global battle of narratives, the EU should position itself as a force to reform the international order if the union wishes to repair its image abroad and rebuild trust. As debates about the future governance of digital, cyber, and tech issues increasingly converge at the UN, a European narrative that can weave in others’ hopes and concerns is critical not only at the negotiating table but also to turn policies into practice.

How can the EU include others in its vision of a human-centric, multistakeholder digital world? To navigate growing contestation, the EU should make its narrative power more inclusive and more effective. For decades, the union has helped shape the digital space through regulation, investment, and support for partner countries. This approach increased the EU’s geopolitical reach. Now, the EU needs to sustain this network, and two insights are particularly relevant to the question of how to do so. First, policy framing matters. Creating linkages between issues and developing a narrative that resonates with others are crucial to build policy coalitions, as these steps demonstrate the EU’s willingness to compromise. Great ideas do not count if they are not carried by meaningful alliances. Second, global organizations that offer each member country a voice and a vote, like the UN, cannot be ignored. For better or worse, these bodies are a cornerstone of multilateral cooperation for many countries.

The EU as a Narrative Power

Contrary to what the current global context suggests, power and influence in international politics are measured not only in terms of missiles and money. It is also a question of who can link different policy issues and devise a framing that resonates with others. For instance, in the past, the EU has demonstrated its capacity to link human rights to other foreign policy issues and place them at the center of its agenda, based on its regulatory power. Framing is a politically consequential exercise, at it allows policymakers to set the content and rules of collective governance. The goal of framing is therefore to build a coalition that can carry a proposal forward and, ultimately, make it the dominant approach in international organizations.

The EU has demonstrated its ability to become a framing champion that can create such framing-based coalitions. Its dominant policy frame, which links open markets to human rights (contrary to China’s approach) and delinks them from security (contrary to the U.S. view), has been an attractive third way that found support in other parts of the world. The EU’s approach to data protection is one example. Of course, this framing ability is not completely detached from the material aspects of power. Thus, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has become powerful because of its clear link to the union’s market access. And while the EU’s framing ability in the digital domain is constrained by the fact that most top tech companies reside in the United States, the EU has also shown its resolve to go up against tech giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and X (formerly Twitter) to strengthen its human-centric framing. Therefore, moving forward, the EU’s goal should be not so much to “relearn the language of power” to boost its material influence, in the words of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, but to hone its existing language skills.

Over the past decades, the EU has created powerful digital policy frames with which global heavyweights like the United States and China have found it difficult to compete. Three examples of successful frames stand out. The first and most striking example is in the field of data governance. The growing importance of personal data for digital trade and national security makes data governance a core issue in the digital domain. However, there is no single data governance regime or international organization with the authority to adopt binding rules in this policy area. Instead, states must navigate a dense network of organizations that host different policy frames, including specialized bodies, such as the OECD, the Group of Twenty (G20), and the Council of Europe, and interregional trade and cooperation arrangements, like the EU’s digital partnerships with South Korea and Singapore and the Cross-Border Privacy Rules System of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

In the early 1990s, the EU was one of the first international actors to propose a policy frame for data governance that links competitiveness, fairness, and fundamental rights. This frame was enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the GDPR. The EU’s linking of human rights and competition to cross-border data flows allowed the union to establish an appealing data governance model that inspired data protection regulation in unexpected destinations, such as China, with its Personal Information Protection Law, and Africa, with the African Union’s Malabo Convention on cybersecurity. In addition, the EU used overlapping memberships in the OECD and the Council of Europe to create successful coalitions that led to the modernization of the OECD Privacy Guidelines and the adoption of the Council of Europe’s Convention 108 on data protection. Linking competitiveness to human rights also inspired support for this frame in the courts, such as the European Court of Human Rights or the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States.

The second example of a successful frame is the EU’s approach to disinformation, which links human rights, trust, and accountability in the online environment. In the EU’s view, disinformation impairs the fairness of democratic processes, the freedom of expression, and the safety of citizens. This linking of issues is reflected in the European Democracy Action Plan, the Digital Services Act, and the Digital Markets Act, which provide rules for “a safer digital space in which the fundamental rights of all users of digital services are protected.” In that sense, the EU’s framing contradicts the Russian and Chinese framings of information security.

Although the union increasingly addresses disinformation from the perspectives of security and public order, especially in the context of hybrid conflicts and the war in Ukraine, the bloc maintains the centrality of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including in its approach to foreign information manipulation and interference. The EU’s focus on protecting democratic processes gave it an opening to promote a rights-based framing of disinformation through international platforms. This led to initiatives such as the Council of Europe’s guidelines on the impacts of digital technologies on the freedom of expression; the Group of Seven (G7) Rapid Response Mechanism; the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) guidelines for the governance of digital platforms; and the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity.

The third and most recent example of an EU digital policy frame is the union’s human-centric approach to AI governance. As the EU navigates geopolitical, economic, and political concerns, it has opted to link its positions on competitiveness and human rights to issues of safety and risk management in AI systems. The EU’s AI Act—the first effort to regulate these technologies—places new requirements on high-risk AI in socioeconomic processes and introduces rules for the rollout of consumer products with AI systems.

Since the governance of AI is not a settled issue, variants of the EU’s stance in this area have proliferated internationally, with a focus on the trustworthiness and transparency of AI. For example, the Global Partnership on AI, a multistakeholder platform hosted at the OECD, approaches AI governance by linking human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth. Meanwhile, the UN High-Level Advisory Body on AI has linked risk management and development. Under the Hiroshima AI Process, in which the EU played a leading role, G7 leaders adopted a set of guiding principles on AI and a voluntary code of conduct for AI developers.

An emphasis on inclusive economic growth, sustainable development, innovation, and the protection of human rights is also reflected in the UK-led Bletchley Declaration, which has been endorsed by powerhouses like Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The 2023 AI Safety Summit also spurred new initiatives, such as UK-U.S. bilateral collaboration on guidelines, standards, and best practices for AI-related risks and the U.S.-led Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy.

The UN Global Digital Compact: A Test Bed for Policy Frames

The way the digital space is governed has multifaceted social and political implications. And different visions of the digital future create competition among states, leading to diverging policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks. Increasingly, these visions clash at the UN, where different formats have been established to host competing policy debates: the GDC, the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) for responsible cyber behavior, the Ad Hoc Committee on cybercrime, and the AI advisory body. The outcomes of these framing contests will have concrete ramifications for the implementation of AI governance, which is why states attach so much attention to them. What does this mean in practice?

The GDC negotiations are the latest illustration of how different issue linkages emerge and policy frames are shaped. The key issue in the talks was the need to ensure that the development of new technologies does not come at the cost of human rights, safety, and the security of societies. Governments have already shown their willingness to use new technologies to implement policies that strengthen their control over citizens: the Freedom on the Net index and a global tracker of internet shutdowns document such practices.

However, since diplomacy is a game of appearances, no country will present a position that openly undermines the human rights system. Quite the opposite: authoritarian regimes often refer to the protection of human rights to mask proposals that undermine the fundamental rights of their citizens. At the same time, the opponents of such proposals are often democratic governments that want to expose the authoritarian instrumentalization of human rights narratives.

Issue linkages and policy frames proved useful in such diplomatic games during the GDC negotiations and are likely to influence the compact’s implementation. Through the GDC, states have agreed to address the potential risks of new technologies for human rights. The EU promoted the view that digital transformation needs to be human-centric and prioritize the links between human rights, innovation, competitiveness, and sustainability.

The union’s preference to delink this frame from development as the central concern benefited China. That is because human development, access to the internet and new technologies, and poverty reduction are important goals for many G77 countries that see new technologies as accelerators of economic growth. Consequently, China linked human rights and development in its negotiating position, thereby gaining in the support of the G77 countries, which pushed for human oversight of technology to be addressed “in ways that put sustainable development at the centre.” However, following pushback from the EU, the text of the compact was revised to include a compromise solution that referred to “human oversight of technology in ways that advance sustainable development and the full enjoyment of human rights.”

The same group of countries insisted in the negotiations on including references to the “right to development” in the context of harnessing digital technologies to advance human rights. However, placing sustainable development at the center of the compact would have upset the balance between the UN’s three core pillars and strengthened a state-centric approach to technology. Ultimately, it would have benefited China’s main policy frame, which aims to preserve sovereignty in the digital domain.

For this reason, the EU saw the proposed references to the right to development, which is not a defined human right, as an attempt to dilute the existing human rights regime. For instance, bans on the sale of surveillance technology could be presented by authoritarian regimes as undermining their development objectives to ensure the safety of their citizens from terrorism or organized crime. Hijacking of the development frame by China—or Russia—is not a new method for building coalitions. Nonetheless, it puts the EU, as a major international donor, in a difficult position.

Issue linkages and policy frames also have implications for the choice of governance mechanisms, especially multistakeholder approaches to internet governance. The GDC’s numerous references to states’ involvement and multilateral processes suggest that the compact will be implemented primarily through state-centric processes focused on preserving sovereignty. The EU insisted on limiting references to multilateral cooperation and on strengthening a commitment to multistakeholder partnerships that put all actors on an equal footing.

One of the union’s concerns was that a focus on multilateral cooperation could increase efforts to bring internet governance into intergovernmental forums and calls for top-down control of the internet. The positions of the G77 and the EU on the role of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in the compact’s implementation illustrate this controversy. While the EU supported stronger language on the IGF, for example to establish a high-level discussion track to help all stakeholders contribute to the compact’s delivery, this suggestion was opposed by the G77. Civil society organizations raised several of these points.

At the same time, the GDC calls for the establishment of new bodies that might undermine existing internet governance platforms. In relation to AI, the compact proposes a new Global Fund for AI for Sustainable Development to catalyze capacity-building efforts and promote AI-based solutions for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Linking AI to the SDGs through capacity building is meant to ensure G77 support for the fund, although there is little concrete information available about its intended purpose, financing, and governance structure. In the negotiations, the German delegation pointed out that this proposal duplicated existing financing for digitization projects for sustainable development under UN financing instruments, such as the digital window of the Joint SDG Fund.

Strengthening Narrative Power Europe

Because policy frames can serve foreign policy goals and the EU has an ambition to influence the global governance of the digital domain, the union needs to become a more conscious narrative power. Uncertainty about the future of the EU’s traditional alliances, especially with the United States, make it even more urgent for the union to boost its narrative power arsenal and acknowledge the important roles of other partners in strengthening multilateralism.

The future of multilateral cooperation will be shaped by the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Donald Trump’s negative attitude toward the UN is no secret. His 2017–2021 administration froze or reduced funding to parts of the UN system and withdrew from UN bodies and agencies, such as the Human Rights Council, UNESCO, and the World Health Organization. Should such a scenario materialize again, engaging with other partners will be critical. The EU can do so in four ways.

Defend Core Policy Frames

First, the EU needs a storyteller in chief: a central figure who can provide political leadership, garner resources, explain the EU’s core concerns, and show openness to dialogue. To this end, the union should appoint a special representative or envoy for the digital future. Placing this dossier in the hands of someone with strong digital credentials and diplomatic skills would be essential.

This could be done in one of two ways. A special representative under the purview of the EU foreign policy chief, like the other EU special representatives, would benefit from access to the EU’s diplomatic machinery, including relevant directorates of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the Political and Security Committee, a body of the EU Council that deals with the union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Alternatively, given that the responsibility and financial resources for digital policies lie with the European Commission, a special envoy under the commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy might be a better option.

To succeed, the special representative or envoy would need to become a real bridge builder internally and externally. The appointee would have to rely on the network of EU delegations, with reinforced capacities to identify the frames that shape partner countries’ digital policies. This approach would call for a change of mindset in the delegations from simple reporting to identifying critical issue linkages. This may require new working methods, investment in developing the human capacities of the EEAS, and more strategic use of EU funding for international partnerships and cooperation. The role of the commission services in supporting this figure would be central, given their expertise and know-how.

The new special representative or envoy would require the support of a dedicated analysis unit to ensure that different messages reaching Brussels are connected to the EU’s policy frames. In cooperation with the delegations and regional desks, such a unit would also be responsible for designing relevant alliances. This change of mindset is all the more important because other actors, especially authoritarian regimes, are likewise engaged in devising frames and garnering support for them.

Build Effective Coalitions

Second, the EU needs to acknowledge that getting the message across requires investment in effective coalition building. Carnegie’s Stewart Patrick and Emma Klein have explored the importance of the UN in alliance making. American political scientist Francis Fukuyama has highlighted the complexities of “multi-multilateralism,” defined as “an array of overlapping and sometimes competitive international institutions.” In the EU context, analysts have proposed overcoming Eurocentricity and abandoning digital tribalism as important pieces of the alliance-building puzzle.

Strengthening the EU’s narrative power would therefore require a new strategy of alliance building. Traditional coalition-building approaches are often driven by predefined assumptions about common interests or values. For instance, the transatlanticist turn in the EU’s foreign and security policy since 2019 has privileged stronger cooperation and the alignment of positions with the United States, despite clear divergences on issues such as data protection and AI regulation.

A new approach to coalition building would imply a varied geometry of partnerships and alliances rooted in shared support for specific policy frames. One such frame is the human-centric digital transition, which has become a cornerstone of the EU’s international engagement. For this frame to have a global impact, the EU needs to build the broadest possible coalitions with both states and nonstate actors. Instead of presenting others with a binary choice—with or against the EU—a confident narrative power Europe should be open to embracing others’ ideas and incorporating them into its own policies. More inclusive and internationally sensitive digital policies—for instance, through proper consultations and peer-review mechanisms—would represent a significant shift toward more openness in EU policymaking.

The road to successful alliances at the UN may lead through other organizations and venues. In August 2024, after a Russia-sponsored resolution, the UN General Assembly Third Committee adopted a new convention on cybercrime, which included elements of data governance debates that had taken place in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Council of Europe, and Interpol. Separately, Russia turned the UN’s OEWG into a central forum for discussions of international security in cyberspace, including 5G, supply chain security, and critical infrastructure. These issues were previously central to the work of task-specific international organizations, such as the International Telecommunication Union, the WTO, the OECD, and the G7. In concrete terms, for the EU, ensuring that policy frames are successful will require flexible diplomacy without falling back into interinstitutional turf wars between the EEAS and the commission.

Manage Contestation

Third, the EU needs to embrace differing points of view. Contestation is becoming a dirty word in some EU foreign policy circles, with the result that the way the EU projects and defends its positions matters. However, multilateralism and the rules-based order work even if the EU’s partner countries disagree with these positions. Therefore, the existence of viewpoints that differ from those of the EU is not a sign of the multilateral system in crisis. Quite the opposite: contestation shows the value of deliberation and cooperation through international organizations. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed this sentiment clearly in 2023: “Two strategic partners do not discuss threats. We discuss proposals.” The fact that rules are made elsewhere or require the EU to compromise does not mean that the international system is no longer rules based.

The EU needs to take account of the Global South’s skepticism toward—and even rejection of—minilateral forums and ad hoc coalitions in the digital domain. Paradoxically, it is the G77 countries that often demonstrate that multilateralism matters. This development-oriented group of countries sees the UN as the only international organization in which they can seek support for their digital policy frames, which are centered on development, growth, and equal access to digital resources. The EU should seriously engage with the group’s policy concerns, debate which issues can be linked to one another, and seek compromise. The adoption of the GDC provides a solid foundation for strengthening existing digital partnerships and building new ones. For this reason, the EU should expand its partnerships in this area to digital players in the Global South, such as Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.

Embrace a Culture of Risk

Finally, the EU should become less risk averse and more accepting of failure. Growing competition in regulation, markets, innovation, and values clearly shows that the EU’s offer is not the only option. That means that the EU will sometimes fail to convince others to follow its approach. However, failure is not a word often found in EU strategic documents. The September 2024 report on the future of European competitiveness by former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi mentions Europe’s failures on only five occasions. But Draghi’s report uses failures to substantiate lessons that the EU should draw from its past experiences, especially when it comes to new technologies. Unfortunately, in Europe’s current highly polarized political context, with extremist parties on the rise, there is little appetite for risk taking. Consequently, a failure—whether of a policy, an instrument, or a tool—is seen not as an opportunity to learn but as a weapon against political opponents and critics.

For instance, the EU’s failure to take more decisive action against spyware abuses has contributed to the growth of this market. According to research by Carnegie, at least seventy-four governments contracted with commercial firms to obtain spyware or digital forensics technology between 2011 and 2023. Concerns by the commission about a potential political backlash from some member states against stricter regulation of this market resulted in watered-down regulation and weak accountability mechanisms. This leadership vacuum was filled by France and the UK, which launched the Pall Mall Process to tackle the irresponsible use of cyber intrusion capabilities, and by the U.S.-led coalition to counter the proliferation and misuse of commercial spyware.

More broadly, the EU should strengthen its policy mechanisms and tools to identify lessons, capture experiences, and adapt to new realities. To succeed in the long term, the EU may sometimes have to fail in the short term.

Navigating a Sea of Narratives

The EU’s ability to harness its narrative power will be crucial if the union wants to remain an active partner in the formulation and implementation of digital policies. With many debates occurring concurrently in different international organizations, the traditional approach of working in and with these bodies one by one is not enough. Instead, the EU needs to shift to an approach of networked multilateralism and better connect the discussions that take place in different organizations, thereby enhancing the involvement of multiple stakeholders.

Such a shift would bring three clear benefits. First, it would allow the EU to test the same policy frame, or several frames, in different venues and build coalitions around them. If successful, these frames could be then replicated in other international organizations, including the UN. Second, networked multilateralism would allow for better monitoring of the ways in which other governments engage in different venues to promote their policy frames and design counterstrategies. Third, it would push the EU institutions to review their working methods to promote more collaboration. The current approach, in which ample resources reside with the commission and remain inaccessible to the EEAS, is unproductive. The appointment of a special representative or envoy could, in that respect, serve as a bridge between institutions.

The EU’s narrative power was on full display during the GDC negotiations, when the EU’s human-centered framing of digital transformation was reflected in the final text, which linked internet governance and human rights. This outcome was preceded by intense negotiations and uncertainty. But ultimately, the process demonstrated the EU’s capacity to build alliances on controversial issues by creating convincing issue linkages. In the months to come, the compact’s implementation process will provide an opening for the EU to use this capacity and exercise its narrative power.

Stephanie Hofmann is professor and joint chair of international relations at the European University Institute.

Patryk Pawlak is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.

This article builds on an academic article published in the Review of International Political Economy, which explored many aspects of policy boundaries and issue framing in more detail.