Fall 2025 Issue: Defending Europe’s Economic Security

Editorial

Henning Hoff

Defending Europe’s Economic Security

Europeans are feeling the “ground shifting beneath them,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said recently. In response, the EU needs to get better at safeguarding its economic security.

What Europe Thinks ...

Luke Johnson

Under Pressure from Trump and Xi, Europeans Want a Stronger EU

US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and a deteriorating relationship with Xi Jinping’s China have alerted EU citizens to the importance of economic security.

On the Ground

Lucy Ash

Ukraine’s Artists Respond to War

Seeking new visual languages and forms of expression, Ukrainian artists are playing their part in the country’s war effort and sending bold messages of defiance.

Cover Section

Hans Kribbe

Luuk van Middelaar

The EU Needs an Economic Security Council

The European Union is ill-equipped to deal with the dilemmas emerging from the new age of geoeconomics. It requires a new body to decide on strategic questions and trade-offs in an accountable way.

Francesca Ghiretti

The Return of Economic Statecraft

China and the United States have always used economic statecraft, while Brussels preferred to think about economic security. This needs to change.

Bernd Lange

“Pressure Is Coming from both the United States and China“

In an interview, the chair of the Committee on International Trade in the European Parliament, Bernd Lange of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD), discusses how the EU can survive in the new era of geoeconomics.

Emily Benson

Venesa Rugova

Dominance and Sovereignty: The Geopolitics of the Transatlantic Tech Stack

US efforts to dominate advanced technology supply chains have deepened the EU’s anxieties about its technological dependencies. Achieving greater strategic autonomy in this field is a formidable challenge.

Filip Medunić

Germany Needs to Face the New Economic Reality

The Merz government has the chance to improve the country’s geoeconomic resilience and strengthen its global economic position with its proposed new Economic Security Strategy.

Jake Benford

A Missing Pillar: Economic Security Cooperation in the EU-UK Partnership

Economic security is fast emerging as a strategic priority for Europe as a whole. The EU is expanding its partnerships with like-minded allies, yet its engagement with the UK remains merely nascent. This should change.

Berlin Cable

Henning Hoff

Germany’s Government Lacks New Ideas, and It Shows

The Christian Democrats and Social Democrats of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ coalition government have made an effort to get along better. So far, however, they have failed to come up with the new approaches that the country needs.

Pariscope

Joseph de Weck

The Europeanization of Humiliation

It’s not only EU policies—from trade to defense—that are becoming more Gaullist. European voters’ feelings toward the EU are also becoming more French.

Warsaw Memo

Piotr Buras

The Drones Incident May Well Shift Poland’s Foreign Policy

The idea of a “special” US-Polish relationship has still much currency in Poland and was revived with President Nawrocki’s inaugural Washington visit. But the muted US reaction to Russia’s drones violating Polish airspace is causing Poles to rethink it.

Carbon Critical

Emily Hardy

Dan Helmeci

Climate Change Upends the Logic of Insurance

Fires and floods caused by extreme weather are becoming ever more common—and making insurance unaffordable. This will have dramatic consequences for economic security as well.

Brussels Briefing

Rebecca Christie

Von der Leyen Steps Into the Breach

Brussels’ latest bid to fill the European Union’s leadership void is taking place out of necessity. Paris, Berlin, and other capitals are currently too absorbed to take on the role.

Indo-Pacific Watch

Helena Legarda

Beijing Showcases Its Global Order Pitch

Chinese President Xi Jinping used the recent gathering of over 25 heads of governments in Beijing to launch a new phase of China’s efforts to change the world order. European states should take note.

The Wider View

Jacob Ross

MAGA and Regime Change in Europe

The new US foreign and security policy is often described as isolationist. But its activities in Europe are increasing: not in military terms, but in political ones.

Quarterly Concerns

Jannike Wachowiak

Anand Menon

A New Chapter for UK-German Relations

The Kensington Treaty, signed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in July, has great potential. But, crucially, its success or otherwise will be linked to EU-UK relations.