Europe’s critical infrastructure — spanning energy, transport, digital networks, and undersea cables — forms the backbone of its economy and security. Yet these systems are increasingly vulnerable to hybrid threats, ranging from cyberattacks and sabotage to the weaponisation of strategic dependencies. Recent incidents have shown that disruptions to energy flows or data connectivity can quickly escalate into broader economic and political crises, highlighting how infrastructure security is inseparable from Europe’s strategic autonomy.

Addressing these risks raises urgent questions of preparedness and resilience. The EU must combine infrastructure protection with a stronger capacity for coordination. This means improving collective threat detection and response capacities, tightening security standards across sectors, and fostering public–private cooperation to anticipate vulnerabilities.

Fundamentally, it is also about wider trust and reliance. The EU must urgently clarify which third-country software, equipment, or service providers can be safely integrated into its critical systems. Determining these boundaries is essential to mitigate vulnerabilities without unnecessarily fragmenting global cooperation and supply chains.

Faced with intensifying global competition, tightening markets, and mounting coercive pressures from both China and the United States under President Donald Trump, the European Union must rethink how it sustains its industrial base and global competitiveness. Recent EU initiatives—from the Clean Industrial Deal to the Net-Zero Industry Act—have focused on boosting domestic production, supply-chain resilience, and decarbonisation. Yet, without a coherent external dimension, these efforts risk becoming insular.

A genuine Geo-Industrial Deal should align Europe’s internal industrial and trade instruments with a renewed foreign economic agenda. It must coordinate the Union’s fragmented external policy tools and provide predictability for partners — clarifying how and under what conditions they can access the Single Market and collaborate with European industries.

This means pursuing mutually beneficial industrial partnerships with key third countries, particularly like-minded allies, to secure access to critical inputs, diversify export markets, and promote shared technological standards. At the same time, targeted industrial support and localisation policies should serve clear strategic purposes rather than drift toward protectionism.

Europe’s industrial renewal must blend selective protection and internal value creation with external engagement and strategic partnership, ensuring that the EU remains competitive at home, credible abroad, and attractive as a global economic partner.

Technological leadership and sovereignty have become critical tests of Europe’s ability to maintain strategic autonomy, economic resilience, and global influence in an era of rapid digital transformation. While Europe has long led standard-setting in digital governance, its capacity to translate regulation into innovation and industrial leadership has been limited.

The growing dominance of foreign technology ecosystems—from digital platforms to emerging fields like artificial intelligence and advanced semiconductors—risks deepening Europe’s dependency and eroding its strategic position. Moreover, in key sectors technological leadership is increasingly inseparable from security, emerging as key fault lines in global competition.

To stay competitive, the EU must adopt an investment-driven technology revival agenda. It has to pair its regulatory leadership with stronger industrial and innovation capabilities. This entails fostering cross-border investment, supporting technological ecosystems that connect research to deployment, and leveraging partnerships with trusted allies to reduce vulnerabilities in critical technologies. At the same time, Europe must balance innovation and collaboration with the protection of critical assets in a fragmented global landscape.