The EU Isnt Even Running The Race For Technoindustrial Leadership
The European Commission has correctly identified a range of risks to EU economic security, from supply chain dependency to economic coercion. However, these are symptoms of a deeper geo-economic deterioration, and the Commission's "risk-free" approach is not enough to address one of its root causes: the great power race for technological and industrial leadership and its broader implications for European security. .
Technological thinking...
The EU must analyze this geo-economic challenge and develop tools for better coordinating the defense of European security. Should be:
- Start the race for technology and industry leadership
- Maintaining critical technological edge in industries critical to the future
- Create a business intelligence department
China's ambition to become a technological superpower, and the determination of the United States to prevent it, will fundamentally change the global economy and threaten the security of Europe. The EU and its member states must stop treating issues of economic security differently than issues of national security. Instead, they must decide together how the loss of key assets and technologies will affect European security.
The EU and its member states must decide in which areas they have a significant technological advantage in terms of research, innovation and production capacity. To maintain this leadership, the EU must organize technology, trade and security policy instruments. For example, it should link incentive instruments such as research funding and government aid to specific technology goals. It should also strive to reach a new consensus on export controls that would give Member States more flexibility to apply systematic restrictions when the risk of losing a key technological advantage is high.
Deeper knowledge of industries and supply chains provides greater leeway in the conduct of techno-industrial competition. The ability of the EU to strengthen its economic security will depend on the collection of this information, which the EU and member states collect through various tools. It requires a lot of trust and strong management. The creation of an EU structure in which a limited but gradual exchange of industrial information can take place would greatly increase the geo-economic power of the EU.
...for a new era
Europe's economic security is particularly threatened by the ongoing geo-economic restructuring that is rapidly usurping the keys to power in the global economy. Technological interdependence must remain. To maintain economic security, the EU must position itself as an important player in the technology networks of tomorrow. Partition of the EU into trading instruments controlled by the European Commission on the one hand; security tools controlled by member states play an increasingly smaller role in the face of technological and industrial competition, in which economic security and national security are increasingly becoming two sides of the same coin.
The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take a collective position. ECFR publications reflect the views of their individual authors only.
