Wasn't ASML started based on research funded by the US?
> In 1997, ASML began studying a shift to using extreme ultraviolet and in 1999 joined a consortium, including Intel and two other U.S. chipmakers, in order to exploit fundamental research conducted by the US Department of Energy. Because the CRADA it operates under is funded by the US taxpayer, licensing must be approved by Congress. It collaborated with the Belgian IMEC and Sematech and turned to Carl Zeiss in Germany for its need of mirrors.[25]
> Wasn't ASML started based on research funded by the US?
No. ASML started as a spinoff of ASMI and Philips in 1984. It became hugely successful and effectively a global monopoly in chip production before any of its EUV products shipped.
Also, taxpayer money funds lots of research everywhere, and this is then used by companies to make money. Most of that research is public, done at universities. That the US chose to stick an "ours!!" label on some of it doesn't really make that research more special than other taxpayer funded research, in moral terms.
> In 1997, ASML began studying a shift to using extreme ultraviolet and in 1999 joined a consortium, including Intel and two other U.S. chipmakers, in order to exploit fundamental research conducted by the US Department of Energy. Because the CRADA it operates under is funded by the US taxpayer, licensing must be approved by Congress. It collaborated with the Belgian IMEC and Sematech and turned to Carl Zeiss in Germany for its need of mirrors.[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding
Before aiming to not be pushovers, EU should probably study the history of their own companies.