Though they differ on a definition, the United States, Japan, and now the European Union have all in recent times embraced the need for “economic security.” Economic security is an imprecise term that refers to the shoring up of national interests from an economic perspective. While the United States and Japan have embraced industrial policy in service of this end, the EU’s approach has largely ignored it.
In June, the European Commission and the High Representative issued a communication on “an EU approach to enhance economic security” that “focuses on minimising risks arising from certain economic flows in the context of increased geopolitical tension.” This was followed up by a recommendation published in October calling for a risk assessment of four technology areas, which present “the most sensitive and immediate risks related to technology security and technology leakage,” namely artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, and biotech. These statements, and a prior speech in March by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, mark the starting point for an EU economic security strategy to be developed with the member states over the coming months.
Yet already, a troubling trend can be discerned in how the EU is envisioning economic security. Economic security involves both protection and promotion of technologies, but the EU is focused on the former, paying only lip service to competition—perhaps because this would contradict its neoliberal underpinning. Rather than use the promising policy framework of economic security to rethink the organization of the economy and improve economic competitiveness, the EU’s approach is too narrowly focused on risk reduction.
