You may have heard that Europe is in a state of crisis. This has nothing to do with an influx of refugees, or Greek debt, or even the future of the European Union. The crisis we speak of has even more severe consequences for Europe’s global competitiveness. In our research on the state and pace of digital evolution worldwide, we have found that the old continent is in the midst of a “digital recession.”

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How has Europe dealt with the situation? The response has primarily taken three forms: One has been that of frustration with — and even rejection and censure of — the more dominant U.S. position. Deutsche Telekom’s launch of E-mail Made in Germany promised all data will being kept out of the U.S. government’s prying eyes. At the street level, in France particularly, there is anger against what French critics call Les Gafa (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon).

At the regulatory and policy levels, authorities have doggedly pursued U.S. tech companies. The EU’s antitrust regulator charged Google for abuse of its position as the dominant search engine to promote its own businesses, while the European Parliament even voted in favor of breaking up Google . And, European officials have lodged a plethora of complaints extending well beyond anti-trust concerns, such as tax avoidance and privacy concerns. EU citizens now have the right to “be forgotten” by petitioning Google to delete certain search results, while regulators in the Netherlands, Spain, among others, are investigating Facebook’s privacy practices.

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