Agrégateur de flux

Former Egypt striker Mido, no stranger to controversy in his playing career, is aiming to unearth the next generation of talent in Cairo.

In der heutigen Ausgabe: Merz vs. von der Leyen: Tandem in der Sommerkrise; Kommissar Šefčovič im Gespräch; Trump plant Treffen mit Selenskyj und Putin; Polens neuer Präsident Nawrowski auf Konfrontation mit Brüssel; Schnittstelle von Verteidigung und Landwirtschaft: Ammoniak.

Ursula von der Leyen und der russlandfreundliche slowakische Premier Robert Fico könnten politisch kaum weiter voneinander entfernt sein – doch in einem Punkt herrscht Einigkeit: der Unterstützung für Maroš Šefčovič, zuständig für Handel und dienstältester Kommissar der EU-Kommission.

New rules to better protect journalists, their sources and press freedom in the digital age apply in all EU countries as of 8 August 2025.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

New rules to better protect journalists, their sources and press freedom in the digital age apply in all EU countries as of 8 August 2025.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

New rules to better protect journalists, their sources and press freedom in the digital age apply in all EU countries as of 8 August 2025.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

New rules to better protect journalists, their sources and press freedom in the digital age apply in all EU countries as of 8 August 2025.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Seit dem Abschluss des Deals vergangenen Monat geraten die EU und die USA immer wieder aneinander, wenn es um die konkrete Ausgestaltung der Vereinbarung geht – bei der wirtschaftlichen Sicherheit hingegen zeigen sie sich geeint, mit China klar im Visier.

La Macédoine du Nord tente de se faire une place sur la carte touristique des Balkans. Malgré les succès d'Ohrid et une fréquentation en hausse, le pays peine à diversifier son offre et à fidéliser les visiteurs.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Tourisme balkans, Macédoine du Nord, Economie

Les recettes collectées par la Haggadah de Sarajevo seront versées en soutien à la Palestine. Le Musée national de Bosnie-Herzégovine a provoqué une controverse : des voix s'élèvent pour fustiger une « politisation » du patrimoine juif.

- Le fil de l'Info / Destruction Juifs Balkans , Courrier des Balkans, Israël-Palestine , Bosnie-Herzégovine, Culture et éducation

Was haben eine 155-mm-Artilleriegranate und ein Feld mit sprießendem Weizen gemeinsam? Ammoniak.

By Laia Comerma (Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy of the Brussels School of Governance)

When the European Union (EU) published its 2021 Trade Policy Review, a new buzz phrase took over policy and academia on EU trade policy: ‘open strategic autonomy’ (OSA). This was followed in 2023 by the Economic Security strategy, furthering a shift that brought Europe in line with the global trends towards the ‘geopoliticisation’ and ‘securitisation’ of trade and investment. This global trend has materialised with the spread of multiple trade defence instruments around the world, famously foreign direct investment (FDI) screening mechanisms. Since the Trade Policy Review, the EU has aimed to catch up and has enacted itself an array of new trade defence instruments to complement the traditional ones of anti-subsidies, anti-dumping and safeguards, that now take a key role to implement its economic security goals, as discussed in my newly published JCMS article.

The dragon in the room

These instruments – particularly the FDI screening regulation, the anti-coercion instrument, the international procurement instrument, the foreign subsidies regulation, and the 5G cybersecurity toolbox, amongst others like the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism or the Trade Enforcement Regulation – have the aim of ensuring the EU’s economic security and resilience going forward, as well as its strategic autonomy, aiming to strike a new balance between security and competitiveness.

Several factors have been associated with the need for their enactment, among them the supply chain disruptions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, and the protectionist policies adopted by the Trump and Biden administrations in the United States. Yet, in my article, I demonstrate that an analysis of the EU’s communicative strategy around those instruments, both at the political level (i.e. by EU institutions) and at the media level, indicates that these reforms are mainly associated with concerns about an assertive China. These findings are based on an software-powered text analysis of a dataset of 810 documents published between 2010 and April 2024 by the three main EU institutions – Council, Commission and Parliament –, and the five most influential outlets in Europe at least since 2020: Politico, The Economist, Financial Times, Reuters and Euractiv. The aim was to identify the main narratives used to justify the instruments and how they were linked to China.

This is not incompatible with their application being country-agnostic or horizontal. Yet, both EU institutions and the main pan-EU media outlets have employed a heterogeneous set of China-related narratives to legitimise these instruments, to shape a specific perception of China amongst the European public.

Indeed, China has been instrumentalised in both media and policy discourse, albeit in different ways by both these actors, as a means to justify the necessity and existence of these instruments. This instrumentalization of China has been more comprehensive, strategic and targeted than references to the United States or Russia, who are only mentioned in the context of great-power competition.

Overall, Chinese investment in Europe, especially in strategic sectors like 5G networks, has been framed by the three main EU institutions as a security threat, whilst trade with China in the areas of procurement and subsidies has been depicted as unfair, thereby justifying the introduction of instruments aimed at addressing these imbalances.

Interestingly, my JCMS article illustrates that the framing of China with respect to each of the instruments is targeted to adapt to the heterogeneity of the instruments and their purpose. Media, in particular, have promoted two distinct narratives regarding China: one portraying it as a threat in the context of investment, and another framing it as a source of unfairness in trade. This dual portrayal reinforces the perception of China as a competitor and political rival rather than an economic partner, fostering a vision of China as a ‘threatening other.’ This aligns with the broader trend towards the ‘securitisation’ of Chinese investment in Europe.

Moreover, since 2023, the analysis of the communicative discourse around these instruments by EU institutions shows that the TDIs have become increasingly integrated into broader strategic frameworks, moving beyond their original focus on ‘strategic autonomy’, and towards achieving broader geopolitical and economic security aims. This is coherent with the integration of those strategies with the EU’s trade policy across the board.

What might this mean going forward?

Is the Commission actually targeting China with those instruments? The short answer is that we don’t know yet. While these instruments have arguably been designed to be country-agnostic and thus apply to any country equally who violates the trade rules and standards that each of the instrument deals with, the truth is that China has been overly targeted and framed in the communicative discourse around the justification for the legitimacy and necessity of these instruments. We will need to pay attention, as the first investigations and screenings unfold, to the impact that this has on inward Chinese investment to the EU, even though much of this data is often confidential and the instruments will probably have a deterrence effect that can hardly be quantified.

Additionally, these findings raise the question of how these instruments, and the broader ‘Open Strategic Autonomy’ and Economic Security strategies will impact the EU’s identity as ‘Normative Power Europe’. This means how far the EU can continue employing selectively protectionist measures before its normative identity as a liberal, normative power is fundamentally challenged. While several scholars have argued that the EU continues to advocate for economic openness and positions itself as a defender of multilateralism, the use of unilateral trade instruments signals a significant shift towards a more assertive and less open trade policy.

Moving towards this new paradigm of selective openness and increased assertiveness to protect Europe’s interests, in this new world increasingly marked by tit-for-tat strategies and divide-and-rule tactics, the EU has, in effect, adopted more protectionist measures to prevent coercion and exploitation. This raises important questions about the EU’s evolving identity: Is the emergence of a ‘Geopolitical’ or ‘Geoeconomic Power Europe’ replacing ‘Normative Power Europe’? Or can the two coexist and potentially reinforce one another, rather than being in conflict?

Last but not least, a concern that became ever more relevant since the last European elections in June 2024, where Europe saw a sharp increase in extremist and populist forces in the European Parliament, the EU needs to acknowledge that there are concerns that the OSA instruments could be co-opted for purely protectionist purposes, or at the very least, that they might dangerously shift the EU’s focus from trade openness towards trade defence. This could lead to an increasingly bifurcated trade regime, with continued openness towards allies but heightened assertiveness and greater reliance on autonomous tools against perceived rivals.

In short, even though the current focus of the OSA instruments is to defend multilateralism and the Liberal International Order, they have broader systemic and normative implications that the European Commission still needs to wrap its head around. When it comes to China, it is clear that those instruments were aimed to address the multifaceted concerns that the EU has related to China’s international role and domestic economic policy. But as we move towards their implementation, we will see what the actual impact on an EU-China trade and investment relationship will be, as the last High Level Summit that took place in Beijing on the 24th of July demonstrated, is already fraught with misunderstanding and tensions.

 

Laia Comerma is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy of the Brussels School of Governance (BSoG-VUB) under the ERC project ‘Europe in US-China rivalry’ (SINATRA). She completed her PhD at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (IBEI). Her doctoral dissertation, “The politics of EU-China economic relations: Normative and regulatory disputes in the reconfiguration of global economic governance”, analyses the norms, rules and institutions structuring the foreign policy relation between China and the EU, and how they are being reformed due to their interaction in the fields of investment, trade, and development infrastructure. Her research fields of interest are foreign policy analysis, Chinese and EU foreign policy, and EU–China relations. She holds a MSc in International relations from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from UPF-UAM-UC3M. 

 

The post China as a Catalyst of the European Union’s Trade Defence Instruments appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

IISD’s Stefan Jungcurt has interviewed Marianne Beisheim, Senior Associate, Global Affairs, at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). Beisheim shares her perspectives on connecting science and policy for SDG implementation, UN reform, and keeping the momentum in an increasingly fragmented world.

In seiner Antrittsrede als neuer Präsident Polens hat Karol Nawrocki eine selbstbewusstere Haltung gegenüber Brüssel angekündigt. Polen dürfe keine „verlängerte Werkbank“ der Europäischen Union sein, betonte er.

Strengthening the Indo-German developmental agenda through AI

Das Bundeskabinett hat sich heute auf ein stabiles Rentenniveau bis 2031 und eine Ausweitung der Mütterrente geeinigt. Dazu eine Einschätzung von Rentenexperte Johannes Geyer, stellvertretender Leiter der Abteilung Staat im Deutschen Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW Berlin):

Die Haltelinie von 48 Prozent beim Rentenniveau zu sichern, ist angesichts niedriger Renten und wenig verbreiteter privater Vorsorge ein richtiges Signal. Ab 2029 erfordert dieses Ziel jedoch erhebliche zusätzliche Steuermittel. Auch die Ausweitung der Mütterrente bindet langfristig sehr viel Geld. Die Rentenkassen selbst sollen dadurch zunächst nicht zusätzlich belastet werden, aber die Abhängigkeit vom Bundeshaushalt wächst. Da die Babyboomer in den kommenden Jahren in Rente gehen, steigen die Ausgaben der Rentenversicherung ohnehin deutlich. Den steigenden Steuerzuschuss zu finanzieren, wird eine große Herausforderung sein. Wer eine Anhebung des Renteneintrittsalters vermeiden will, muss die Erwerbstätigkeit steigern – etwa durch mehr qualifizierte Zuwanderung, eine höhere Frauenerwerbstätigkeit, mehr ältere Erwerbstätige und bessere Bildung. Die heutigen Beschlüsse des Bundeskabinetts zur Haltelinie beim Rentenniveau und Ausweitung der Mütterrente können daher nur ein erster Schritt sein. Langfristig sollte das Drei-Säulen-Modell der Altersvorsorge gestärkt und ein klares Sicherungsziel definiert werden, damit im Alter nicht allein auf die gesetzliche Rente gesetzt werden muss.

Am Abend jenes Tages im Juli, an dem Brüssel seinen milliardenschweren Haushaltsplan präsentierte, landete gegen halb zehn eine Spätmeldung in den Postfächern der Berliner Hauptstadtpresse.