If the gas crisis taught Europe the danger of depending on a single hostile supplier, the next vulnerability is quieter but arguably deeper: raw materials and critical minerals. Lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and dozens of other inputs used in batteries, wind turbines, electric motors, and semiconductors flow through supply chains overwhelmingly controlled or processed […]
The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility has become a central test case for performance-based fiscal policy. Its experience offers lessons for the design of the next Multiannual Financial Framework. This column reviews evidence on the facility’s economic impact, implementation, and use of milestones and targets. It argues that the facility has supported demand, helped advance…
Defence policy is usually discussed as a national security issue, but its economic effects are often highly local. This column presents new evidence from 1,011 regions in 15 European countries suggesting that places hosting defence production and supply chain activity have a larger economic footprint than comparable places without such activity: they enjoy higher income…
Supply chain disruptions have become a recurring feature of recent economic dynamics and an increasing concern in inflation policy discussions. This column argues that inflationary effects of these disruptions operate through more than higher import and transportation costs: when supply-chain bottlenecks make products harder to replenish, firms’ pricing power increases, and these price increases are…
The next Trump crisis will come. European governments facing American pressure will need to weigh the costs and benefits of their responses. Here are two scenarios to show what resistance costs, and why those costs are lower than they appear
The US under Trump will seek new ways to coerce Europe economically. Here is how Europeans can resist the pressure and emerge stronger for it.
A major ECFR poll finds the European public, in a time of rupture, thinking differently and questioning old assumptions. It reveals new political space available to their leaders (for now) and challenges them to use it
Jordan Bardella is the frontrunner in the French presidential election next year. His win would transform France’s place in Europe. This scenario shows how
As climate policy becomes increasingly contested, Europe must adapt its Green Deal to a new political era. The first policy brief in the New Politics project outlines five new deals to make the transition more durable, popular and politically resilient.
The EU can exploit its system to say no to China—now, and long into the future