#StrategicAutonomics: X... for Xiangqi

Xiangqi, a strategy board game for two players, is a good image to describe Europe’s role among growing tensions between the United States and China.

Europe will not be a mere bystander or a chessboard in the geopolitical play between the US and China.

We are equipping ourselves with the instruments we need to maintain a balance of power.

When the US closed access to factories manufacturing components essential to the production of vaccines, we had to activate a similar and reciprocal export control tool in Europe to re-establish dialogue and reopen supply chains.

When the US passed the Inflation Reduction Act attracting entire clean tech supply chains on its soil, it is Europe’s Green Deal ambition that was challenged, prompting our Net Zero Industry Act to boost our manufacturing capacity in clean tech. And we will find ways to address with the US some WTO irritant measures.

China restricting access to critical raw material such as gallium and germanium, it is another demonstration of the geopolitics of supply chains in which dependencies are being weaponised.

Chinese electrical cars entering massively the European market at prices which defy competition puts Europe’s EV industrial leadership at stake. Another sign that China is and will increasingly continue to be our systemic rival.

It is in this nonbinary world that Europe must strengthen its position, its stance, its leadership, using all its tools (existing, in the making or upcoming) to defend its interests.

We now have new trade defence instruments at our disposal, and we will not hesitate to use them..

The Foreign Subsidies Regulation ensures that subsidies from third countries do not distort competition in the Single Market.

With the help of the EU Foreign Direct Investment Screening framework and the Anti-Coercion Instrument, we support appropriate responses to trade-related threats to the EU's economic security.

But these instruments’ impact depends on our agility to implement them.

Determination and speed are key.

We cannot wait for European industry to fade out to start defending our interests. Just as we sped up the instruction of Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs), it is now time to speed up our use of trade defence instruments.

Our recent Economic Security Strategy is a major step towards defining Europe’s approach on the global stage.

While remaining open, it also acknowledges the risks linked to dependencies in our supply chains, technologies and critical infrastructures, or linked to economic coercion threats by our trading partners against the EU’s interests.

Europe is finalising a list of strategic technologies, and it must map its supply chains dependencies and reduce their impact, and present new and reinforced instruments to defend our interests: outbound investment screening, export control coordination, strengthened FDI screening.

Our economic security is about equipping the Single Market with the tools needed to establish ther right balance of power in defence of European interests.

#Security #Industry