Trade and investment connect Europe to the world and expose it to decisions made elsewhere. Economic security policy has to identify which exposures matter, which tools can address them and what those tools cost. This programme follows tariffs, industrial policy, critical materials and carbon rules through the decisions faced by firms and governments.
3 research questions13 analyses in the collection
The research question
How can Europe reduce strategic exposure while preserving competition and exchange?
Policy file · public record
CBAM moves into its definitive regime
The Commission confirmed the start of the definitive CBAM regime in January. Production data, verification and access to the reporting system now sit directly within the commercial relationship.
What happens to the investment that firms postpone?
A tariff changes the price of a shipment. Uncertainty over the next decision can change whether an investment goes ahead at all. The second effect is harder to see: a production line that never starts generates no cancelled shipment, while a shorter contract may appear prudent from the buyer's perspective and destabilising to a supplier.
The trade programme therefore reads tariff decisions alongside planning horizons, inventory requirements and the availability of alternatives. A negotiated framework can reduce one source of tension without settling every operating rule. Its practical value depends on the scope, timing and procedures through which firms obtain clarity.
Diversification also deserves a more precise test than counting export destinations. A new market may use the same shipping corridor or require substantial certification and working capital. Public support is most defensible where it creates a useful option that individual firms struggle to develop alone. It should leave commercial risk with the businesses making the investment.
The industrial policy between a subsidy and a factory
Which bottleneck is the intervention meant to remove?
A subsidy announcement provides a number and a recipient. An industrial strategy needs a clearer account of the capability being purchased. Reliable electricity, qualified suppliers, skilled staff and customers can determine whether a project succeeds after the initial public support ends. The largest award is not necessarily attached to the most valuable constraint.
Critical materials and electric vehicles bring different versions of this problem into the open. Extraction is one stage in a materials chain; processing and qualification connect it to a customer. Trade defence can change a vehicle's price at the border, but affordability also depends on production, technology and charging. These cases are useful because they force a distinction between protecting an existing position and improving a firm's ability to compete.
The programme asks what would happen without an intervention, which alternatives are available and how success could be reviewed. That comparison will rarely yield certainty. It can still expose a weak case, particularly when benefits are described in European terms while costs and decision-making remain exclusively national.
A rule can change a market before it changes a product. Reporting obligations create demand for data and verification; uncertainty over an interpretation can delay a contract. Smaller firms may face a larger cost relative to their activity even when they face the same formal requirements as their competitors.
CBAM and technology regulation offer different cases for examining this effect. Carbon accounting ties a claim about production to a commercial transaction. AI governance raises questions about which organisations can interpret obligations, procure a service and move between suppliers. The analytical connection is administrative capacity, not an assumption that the two frameworks have identical purposes or consequences.
Simplification has to preserve the information on which a rule depends. A threshold can reduce a fixed burden while changing incentives at the boundary. Guidance can resolve confusion but become a source of instability if it changes without explanation. A useful review identifies the particular failure before adding another general reporting requirement.
The starting point is a specific function that could fail: access to an input, a market or a service. The assessment then compares exposure, substitutes and the time required to adjust. It should distinguish a security rationale from a competitiveness claim, and state the conditions under which an intervention would be revised or withdrawn.
Reading room
Analysis across the programme
13 articles, arranged by year. The dates below identify the entries in the commentary collection.
The most revealing developments will be at the point of implementation: how firms use a trade arrangement, how suppliers document emissions and whether support programmes remove the bottlenecks used to justify them.