One of the major challenges facing the European Union is to make possible a European public sphere which advances European integration beyond individual member states and works against the disintegration of the great European idea and the media polarisation associated with disinformation and hate speech. For this purpose, a European alternative network of platforms is called for—a European digital public sphere (EDPS) which would create a digitally sovereign Europe, independent of the United States and Chinese platform giants. The foundations—the values, rules, governance structures and steps towards implementation—of a new EDPS, oriented to the public and the citizens of Europe, have been discussed in many places, especially in the academic arena and civil society. The goal of this project, a series of articles, is to bring the findings and ideas hitherto into a larger circle and thus to strengthen the political will behind such a scheme. Due to the scale of this challenge and its complexity, the questions at issue must first of all be tackled and clarified. Many problems—legal, organisational, regulatory, financial and so on—have already been identified. Bringing these to light and sketching solutions, or at least procedures for so doing, is the next step.
