Europe Was Built on Freedom. Innovation Depends on It.
Speaking at the European Liberal Forum Technopolitics Forum, Antonios Nestoras, Founder and President of the European Policy Innovation Council (EPIC), set out a clear position on Europe’s innovation dilemma: the problem is not a lack of ideas, talent, or ambition. It is a growing confusion between control and progress.
Europe does not need to reinvent the wheel to lead in innovation and technology. The continent’s historic strength has always rested on freedom — to own property, to do business, to take risks, to think, speak, and create.
Those freedoms produced Europe’s industrial base, scientific breakthroughs, and entrepreneurial culture. They are not abstract values. They are practical foundations of innovation.
Today, that foundation is under strain. Regulation increasingly treats innovation as a risk to be managed rather than a force to be enabled. Control is mistaken for safety. Precaution is elevated above progress. The result is a system that slows experimentation, raises barriers to entry, and rewards compliance over creativity.
Innovation cannot flourish in an environment of permanent permission-seeking. Technologies that must fight their way through overlapping rules, uncertain approvals, and fragmented markets do not scale — they relocate.
The discussion at the ELF Technopolitics Forum emphasised a simple truth: Europe’s innovation challenge is not about catching up technologically. It is about remembering what made innovation possible in the first place.
Moving forward does not require abandoning standards or values. It requires restoring proportionality, trust, and freedom to Europe’s regulatory model. Progress does not come from micromanagement. It comes from enabling people and firms to build, invest, and create.
Europe was built on freedom. Its technological future depends on rediscovering it.
