Nokia

Nokia is a Finnish telecommunications equipment maker founded in 1865 in Tampere as a paper mill, pivoting to telecoms equipment in the 1990s. It is today one of the two largest suppliers of 5G radio and core network technology in Western-aligned markets, alongside Ericsson, employing approximately 86,000 people in 130 countries and generating revenues of roughly €22 billion in 2024. The company divested its handset business to Microsoft in 2014 and has focused exclusively on network infrastructure since.

Nokia acquired French-American rival Alcatel-Lucent in an all-stock deal announced in April 2015. The European Commission cleared it unconditionally in July 2015 and Alcatel-Lucent began operating as part of the Nokia Group in January 2016, roughly nine months after announcement, with no government golden share reported in either jurisdiction; the remaining minority shares were bought out in a squeeze-out completed in late 2016.

Nokia's chief executive joined six European technology counterparts, including ASML, Airbus, Ericsson, Mistral AI, SAP and Siemens, in a joint op-ed published in Handelsblatt and Corriere della Sera on 5 May 2026, calling on the European Commission to reduce regulatory friction, simplify AI rules and back European industrial champions with state support. The letter followed a meeting with Commission President von der Leyen and represented one of the most direct industry lobbying interventions of the year on European tech sovereignty policy.

Nokia's participation is significant because Finnish and Nordic voices carry credibility in Brussels as smaller-country stakeholders without the perceived self-interest of France or Germany. Nokia has a direct stake in EU industrial policy as both a telecoms supplier to European operators and a beneficiary of Chips Act-style funding for its radio chipsets. Its own 2015-2016 acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, closing within around nine months and with no government golden share, stands as a counterpoint to the Cohere-Aleph Alpha merger, which has been delayed for months over German protective-rights design.