On 17 July 2026, at the twenty-sixth Franco-German Council of Ministers meeting in Brühl, France and Germany asked the European Commission to bring forward concrete proposals quickly to strengthen trade defence instruments, industrial policy and the European economic security framework. Among the options set out is a new European resilience instrument, designed to reduce dependencies in critical and strategic sectors and to counter the excessive concentration of supply chains. In parallel, the two countries support faster and more systematic use of the instruments already available, together with the diversification of export markets through new trade agreements.
Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz instructed their respective Ministers of the Economy, Finance and Foreign Affairs to draw up a joint roadmap on China by September, intended to feed into the European discussions of the autumn. The stated objective is not decoupling from the Chinese economy, but a combination of dialogue, de-risking and protection of European industry. Among the issues on the table: Chinese overcapacity and subsidies, the speed of trade defence investigations, market access, technology transfers, European preference and European content in Union-funded instruments, and the euro–renminbi exchange rate. On this point Macron spoke of a «historic convergence».
The main development concerns the German position. In the growth and employment programme adopted by the coalition on 2 July, Berlin announced a new external economic policy strategy: faster and sector-specific application of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures, action against circumvention practices and geo-economic imbalances and, in certain strategic sectors, the possibility of imposing technology transfer obligations on investors from some third countries. The document also supports European preference criteria in public funding programmes and swift approval of the Industrial Accelerator Act.
In operational terms, Paris and Berlin will step up cooperation on critical raw materials: a round table with companies on the value chain for permanent magnets and rare earths, support for a European mining intelligence platform, and the redirection of European financial instruments towards projects along the critical metals chains.
The wider picture matters too. On 13 July the Foreign Affairs Council approved the Union's new strategic context document, which identifies Russia as the most immediate and direct threat to European security and China as a critical long-term strategic challenge: Beijing combines industrial scale, technological ambition and global reach, and uses trade imbalances, control of critical raw materials and technological advantages as instruments of pressure. The document explicitly recognises that threats to European security are now also geo-economic.
For the companies in the network the point is a concrete one: the centre of gravity of the European debate is shifting towards industrial policy, and with it the files on the Industrial Accelerator Act, on trade defence instruments, on foreign investment screening, on critical raw materials, on public procurement and on European content criteria. Those working in Central and Eastern Europe, where manufacturing chains are long, interwoven and often tied to non-European suppliers, would do well to follow them closely.
This dossier is drawn from «Accade all'UE», the newsletter of the Confindustria Delegation to the European Union.
