It’s honestly insane that it took this much outcry in the current political climate germane the US.
**Why is this relevant to r/neoliberal?**
Because it sits at the intersection of free capital flows, foreign direct investment, state capacity, and national-security exceptions to open markets. It also touches on (waning) transatlantic trust, cloud/data jurisdiction, and how democracies should regulate critical digital infrastructure without defaulting into economic nationalism.
bender3600 on
Glad to see that the government finally came to its senses.
MrStrange15 on
I’ll copy in my comment from the DT. But not sure its allowed to re-ping this to BENE.
The Dutch ministry of economic affairs has decided that Solvinity cannot be sold to an American company, Kyndryl. Solvinity is currently in British hands, but was originally Dutch.
Solvinity is the company behind the Dutch digital ID DigiD. The reasoning for the prohibition of the sale is that it poses a “risk to public interests”, i.e. its a security issue.
It will be quite interesting to see what the Americans will do now.
Personally, I see this as quite good news. The US is not a trustworthy partner anymore, and it is an unreasonable risk to expose Solvinity and DigiD to American oversight and sanctions compliance (see ICC). Some people are calling for the company to return to the Netherlands, but British control doesnt really pose a big risk to the Netherlands.
4 Comments
It’s honestly insane that it took this much outcry in the current political climate germane the US.
**Why is this relevant to r/neoliberal?**
Because it sits at the intersection of free capital flows, foreign direct investment, state capacity, and national-security exceptions to open markets. It also touches on (waning) transatlantic trust, cloud/data jurisdiction, and how democracies should regulate critical digital infrastructure without defaulting into economic nationalism.
Glad to see that the government finally came to its senses.
I’ll copy in my comment from the DT. But not sure its allowed to re-ping this to BENE.
The Dutch ministry of economic affairs has decided that Solvinity cannot be sold to an American company, Kyndryl. Solvinity is currently in British hands, but was originally Dutch.
Solvinity is the company behind the Dutch digital ID DigiD. The reasoning for the prohibition of the sale is that it poses a “risk to public interests”, i.e. its a security issue.
It will be quite interesting to see what the Americans will do now.
Personally, I see this as quite good news. The US is not a trustworthy partner anymore, and it is an unreasonable risk to expose Solvinity and DigiD to American oversight and sanctions compliance (see ICC). Some people are calling for the company to return to the Netherlands, but British control doesnt really pose a big risk to the Netherlands.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2615885-staatssecretaris-verbiedt-amerikaanse-overname-solvinity-bedrijf-achter-digid
https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/brieven_regering/detail?id=2026Z10857&did=2026D24647
Based. Any opportunity Europe can take to curb us or stop our influence from spreading is good.