“Europe needs to change.” This is the premise of the opinion piece published this Tuesday by the Cercle d’Economia, which will be the central theme of its upcoming Annual Meeting, organized next week. This year’s sessions will analyze the strategic autonomy of the European Union (EU) in the face of geopolitical and technological changes that threaten its welfare model. The text highlights that the community space must overcome its internal fragmentation, truly building the European single market, especially in key sectors such as telecommunications, energy, or finance.
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“The world in which the European project was built — a world of stable alliances, open trade, and trust in multilateral institutions — is unraveling at a speed that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago,” emphasizes the business organization. In its note, the Cercle warns that the U.S. and China are concentrating control over technologies that not only transform sectors but also alter the rules of global competitiveness. “Europe is a consumer, not a producer, of the technologies that are defining the future,” they point out.
Technological control by the U.S. and China
To achieve this strategic autonomy, the Cercle argues that the Old Continent must be self-sufficient in “the most basic areas” such as defense, energy, technology, finance, and health. Still, the entity reminds that Europe will only be able to play a relevant role in this changing world “if it is economically strong, and it will only be economically strong if it is capable of acting as a credible geopolitical actor.”
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Among the tools to reposition itself, the Cercle lists the Industrial Acceleration Regulation (RAI), an initiative currently in the approval process to increase the weight of European industry from the current 14% to 20% of GDP by 2035. This mechanism foresees public aid, targeted tariffs on imports, as well as stricter control over foreign investments in sensitive sectors.
Regarding the opportunities for Spain and Catalonia in this context, the Cercle’s note also highlights some assets such as renewable energies, the advanced deployment of fiber optics and 5G, digital hubs, the strength of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector, or the growing defense industry. However, the organization urges addressing shortcomings such as the low weight in the economy of some sectors that drive technological transformation and the lower productivity level compared to other European competitors. Something that “forces many sectors to compete fundamentally on labor costs,” it adds.
