On Friday 15 September, the current Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, presented a ‘non-paper’ on how to make the EU more resilient in the long term, entitled ‘Resilient EU2030’. The 80-page report was prepared in collaboration with the 26 other EU Member States, the European Commission, the Secretariat-General of the Council of the EU, academics and representatives of the private sector. It will be presented to European leaders at the Granada summit on 6 October, said Mr Sánchez. A version had already been examined by the EU Competitiveness Ministers in Bilbao on 25 July (see EUROPE 13229/7).
The overarching message is not new: it is “open strategic autonomy”, ardently defended by all the EU institutions. Nor do the guidelines set out by the Spanish Presidency in the document depart from those contained in the Communication on the EU’s long-term competitiveness, published in March 2023 (see EUROPE 13143/3).
For the current Spanish President, the approach can be framed as two overarching objectives: reducing the EU’s strategic dependence and maintaining its strong position in the global economy.
The EU must therefore focus on sectors in which it already has a competitive advantage, and on those that are “essential for our security”, according to Mr Sánchez. The EU is not going to produce everything it consumes, the report also states, and it draws up a list of assets that meet these strategic criteria: artificial intelligence, electrolysers, wind turbines, solar panels and raw materials (see the full list on page 27 of the document).
The authors of the report outline specific actions to take to strengthen the Union’s capacities. Depending on the sector, it may be necessary, for example, to increase component production capacity, or to concentrate efforts on innovation, they argue.
With regard to the EU’s place in the global economy, the report advocates openness. “The European economy [...] is deeply intertwined with the rest of the world”, Mr Sánchez emphasised. It is therefore crucial “not to close ourselves off, but to launch a new trade expansion, to diversify our links with the outside world”, he explained. And the focus should be on countries that are close to us in terms of values, such as Australia, Canada and others, as well as countries in Latin America and Africa “that wish to strengthen their social and environmental standards alongside us”, in the words of the Spanish President.
However, an entire section of the document is devoted to economic relations with China. The message remains the same as that shared by the Commission and the EU27 in recent months: ‘de-risking’, not ‘decoupling’.
Finally, the authors of the report stress the importance of strengthening multilateral bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
To see the document, go to https://aeur.eu/f/8lf (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)