It’s Time to Talk About Burden Sharing in the Digital Domain

At the June 2025 NATO Summit, burden sharing was once again a headline theme. European allies were once again urged to spend more, do more, and shoulder more of the collective defence load. But there’s another kind of security where the burden falls overwhelmingly on Europe, and it’s long past time we acknowledged it: digital governance.

While Washington lectures Brussels on military spending, it’s the EU that’s been stepping up to protect citizens on both sides of the Atlantic from the harms of an unregulated internet and runaway artificial intelligence.

Europe has led the charge with landmark rules such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), Digital Markets Act, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the AI Act. These are democracy’s answer to opaque algorithms, data exploitation, and AI models with world-altering power but little oversight. And they don’t just safeguard Europeans. They’ve become de facto global standards, helping to protect American users whose own government remains paralyzed by industry lobbying.

Americans are being protected by European rules every day, often without realizing it. When the EU regulates Big Tech, companies respond by applying those changes worldwide to streamline compliance. GDPR ushered in better privacy controls and consent mechanisms that now shape user experiences globally. The DSA has forced platforms to curb disinformation and harmful content, which improves the information ecosystem for users in the US. And the AI Act is compelling developers to build transparency and safety into powerful AI systems, raising the bar for everyone.

This is digital burden sharing. The EU is doing the hard, thankless work of creating guardrails in a digital Wild West, while others benefit without contributing nearly as much.

So, it’s time to expand the burden-sharing conversation beyond ships, tanks, and troops. Security today isn’t just about defending borders, it’s also about defending people, rights, and trust within the digital systems we live in.

Chris Kremidas-Courtney is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the European Policy Centre.

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