EINDHOVEN, Netherlands — Europe needs to be “realistic” about its reliance on the rest of the world for technology, the chief executive of Europe’s largest technology company told POLITICO.

Christophe Fouquet, CEO of Dutch chips giant ASML, tempered expectations about Europe’s drive to become technologically sovereign in an interview Wednesday following the release of the company’s annual results.

“Everyone would have to find a balance between this huge claim for sovereignty … ‘we want everything to be done in our country’ … and the reality, which is: this is a fairly spread ecosystem, with key elements in different places,” Fouquet said. 

“Everyone should be realistic on what it takes and how long it may take,” he said, adding that there will always be a “need” to import key parts of technology supply chains from abroad. 

As the company that designs and builds the world’s most advanced machines for making semiconductors, ASML is not only a major economic asset but also gives Europe a rare point of leverage and resilience in the geopolitically sensitive chips industry.

While Wednesday’s better-than-expected financial results sent the company’s stock soaring, ASML also said it would cut 1,700 jobs to “streamline” its organization. 

Fouquet’s remarks follow growing calls in Brussels to reduce Europe’s heavy reliance on foreign technology, amid strained EU-U.S. ties and concerns about China. 

On Monday, the European Commission’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen told POLITICO in an interview that Europe’s dependencies “can be weaponized against us” and urged the continent not to be dependent on “one country or one company.” She pointed to chips as the area where she saw the biggest need for Europe to break away from foreign reliance.

Asked about the ongoing U.S.-EU tensions and the continuous threat of tariffs, Fouquet on Wednesday labeled those as “a lot of noise.” 

He cited Nexperia, a Dutch-based yet Chinese-owned chipmaker that has been the subject of a recent geopolitical fight, as the latest example of “the interdependencies between the different blocs.”

The ASML boss had another warning for Brussels’ ambitions to boost homegrown technology, arguing the EU needs to dial back its regulatory environment further than it has to date.

Europe needs to make deeper regulatory cuts to get more promising companies, Fouquet said — citing the example of French artificial intelligence frontrunner Mistral, in which ASML last year invested €1.3 billion.

Both ASML and Mistral signed a letter in July last year advocating for a pause to key parts of the bloc’s artificial intelligence law, a suggestion that the EU’s executive picked up in its first digital simplification package, presented in November. 

That simplification package is already an “improvement” but more is needed, Fouquet said. 

“You cannot make things very complicated, and then simplify it a bit and be proud of it,” he said. 

Europe needs to create the conditions for companies “to grow without being annoyed by regulations,” he said.