Cristina Caffarra | On power and the digital colony, and why sovereignty is reason not sentiment | Episode #92
The Only ConstantShow Notes
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Cristina Caffarra - top competition economist, UCL professor, and founder of EuroStack. After 25 years at the top of the antitrust world, she walked away to power up European tech, and she makes a sharp, unapologetic case that Europe is a "digital colony" with everything it needs to change that - if only it would stop admiring the problem and start building. Main topics they discuss include:
Why big tech is pouring money into AI, and why "AI is cloud" - the same hyperscaler stack souped up Europe as a digital colony, sovereignty washing, and why the real case for European tech is growth, not values or kill-switch fears How public procurement can favour European solutions without "discriminating" - and why the mercantilism and protectionism charge is a strawman Where the money actually is and why private demand, not 15 years of regulation, is what will move the dial
If Europe's place in the AI race is something you wrestle with, this conversation will both provoke and energise you.
Do you want to know more about Cristina Caffarra? Dr Cristina Caffarra is a globally renowned competition expert who had a 25-year career as a leading economic consultant. She headed for 17 years (between 2006 and 2022) the Competition Team of Charles River Associates (CRA) in Europe. She then set up Keystone Europe as Managing Partner in July 2022, which she left in 2023.
She co-founded the EuroStack movement in 2024 and is she is co-founder and Chair of the EuroStack Initiative Foundation e.V. EuroStack | Building Europe’s digital future, a non-profit organization to pursue European resilience and asset-building in European tech and digital.
She is recognised as a thought leader in antitrust enforcement, regulation, tech policy, the interface between tech, competition, industrial policy and trade. She is sought after as a public speaker and /regularly keynotes at top events on competition, regulation, digital and industrial policy. She is also a convener with the ability to gather senior agency, policy and academic speakers for the most high-profile policy events in Europe on tech and related economic policy. She hosts and produces the Eacape Forward podcast, and her Annual Escape Forward Brussels Conference is the highest-profile event on economic and regulatory policy in Europe. She has written multiple contributions to the field of competition and regulation of digital markets, lectures in competition economics. She is an Honorary Professor at UCL, she is also Associate Fellow of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in London and Deputy Chair of the CEPR Competition Research Policy Network. She is also a 2026 Fellow at DG Grow.
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