Europeans feel determined grumpy about the economic prospects of the region. And there’s plenty to worry about, including an intense conflict in Ukraine and an escalating war in the Middle East, Europe labor productivity behind behind that of the US and China, a deterioration of the economic outlook for Germany and uncertainty about the effects of the many consecutive elections in 2024. But, nevertheless, the economic outlook for Europe in 2025 remains slightly positive; inflation should fall to 2.2%GDP will increase by 1.5%and unemployment should remain close to its lowest level in 20 years, with a forecast of 6.0%. EU regulators will be busier than ever in 2025; will begin to apply the relevant parts of AI EU Law, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)and Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). To help European business, technology and marketing leaders navigate this complex environment, here are some of Forrester’s top predictions for the coming year:

Interference of satellites by a hostile power will cause major disruption.

In 2024, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ukraine complained to the International Telecommunication Union about interference in satellite networks. Satellite technology is ubiquitous; outages interfere with flights, traffic navigation systems, financial systems, TV networks, Internet-of-things devices, autonomous systems and more. the newly established EU a new space security centerand NATO is too prioritization problem. Assess your risk to understand your dependencies – and your suppliers’ dependencies – as well as potential business continuity.

European firms will use EU funds to invest 100 million euros in sovereign cloud.

In December 2023, the European Commission approved the first major project of common European interest (IPCEI) to create a European value chain for cloud infrastructure and services (CIS). In total, the IPCEI Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services (IPCEI-CIS) project will provide €1.2 billion in public funding, with the EU expecting to unlock a further €1.4 billion in private sector investment by 2031. Providers will benefit from this opportunity to develop new modulations, SUSTAINABLEand secure-by-design services and deploy them closer to EU consumers. In 2025, service providers will add at least EUR 100 million of their own net new private investment to the IPCEI-CIS state aid they receive. Today’s sovereign cloud customers should jump right in. Your organization should look at new opportunities coming from IPCEI-CIS to complement your existing hyperscalar capabilities or address unmet digital sovereignty or cloud sustainability requirements.

A genAI provider will attract the first fine under the EU AI Law.

In February 2025, private parties (but not regulators) may begin to apply the provisions of AI EU Law against prohibited use cases. In August 2025, regulators, including the European AI Office and EU Member States’ data protection authorities, will be allowed to initiate enforcement action against violators of the General Purpose AI (GPAI) model requirements. And we don’t think regulators will wait long; indeed, Forrester predicts that a provider of GPAI models will receive its first fine for breaching the EU AI Law between August and December 2025. While the law targets GPAI requirements – such as the obligation to disclose training sources and share results model evaluations, including adversarial testing—directly to generative AI providers, binds compliance obligations between AI actors, including all software providers that rely on those models. Consequently, your company needs a vetting process for genAI model providers to ensure that they collect the necessary evidence to avoid exposing themselves (and possibly your company) to investigations and fines.

Download for free Prediction guidecovering several of the top predictions for 2025. Get additional free resources, including webinars, at 2025 Predictions Hub.

This post was written by VP, Group Director Laura Koetzle and originally appeared Here.