Early Bird Breakfast Discussions

• 08:00-8:45 | From Diversification to Deal-Making: Europe’s New Geoindustrial Deal 
• 08:00-8:45 | Can Europe Keep its Critical Technological and Industrial Assets?

Morning Roundtables First Session

• 09:00-10:30 | Roundtable 1: Breaking Dependencies: Can Europe Build its Own Digital Ecosystems?

• 09:00-10:30 | Roundtable 2:  What is Quality FDI? The Automotive Sector as Europe’s Test Case 
• 09:00-10:30 | Roundtable 3: European Preference across Strategic Sectors: Defining Vulnerabilities and Capabilities in Pharma and Clean Tech
• 09:00-10:30 | Roundtable 4: Economic Security and the Artic 

Morning Roundtables Second Session

• 11:00-12:30 | Roundtable 5: From Reliance to Resilience: Rethinking the EU–US Economic Partnership

• 11:00-12:30 | Roundtable 6:  Avoiding Friendly Fire: Aligning EU and Indo-Pacific Economic Security Strategies
• 11:00-12:30 | Roundtable 7: Economic Security and China: Where to Draw the Line? 

Successive shocks to trade, supply chains, and energy have laid bare the fragility of economic interdependence, triggering a global race to secure critical inputs, reshore industries, and reduce exposure to external shocks. Yet the pursuit of economic security risks becoming self-defeating: as major economies turn inward, competition over resources, technology, and industrial capacity is hardening into a more fragmented and coercive global order. For import-dependent economies, the stakes are especially high in a world where access to critical inputs is increasingly politicised and where vulnerability is no longer shared equally. In this opening session, leading policymakers and experts will confront a central question: can states secure themselves without accelerating the very fragmentation they seek to guard against, and if not, what does cooperation look like in an era of economic rivalry?

China’s slowing domestic economy, overcapacity and export-driven industrial model are colliding with a United States increasingly willing to use tariffs, subsidies and financial power to protect its economy. The result is not just a trade dispute but a structural macro-imbalance shock to the global economic order. For Europe, the risk is acute: a flood of redirected Chinese exports, industrial wipe-out and increasing structural dependencies, and mounting pressure to choose between openness and economic security. Are we entering a new era of persistent global imbalance, currency tension and economic fragmentation? In this high-level fireside chat, leading economists and policymakers debate the emerging fault lines of the world economy and whether Europe is prepared for what comes next.

A single chokepoint has pushed the global energy system to the brink. The escalation in the Middle East and the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz have exposed just how quickly energy flows and the economies they sustain can be thrown into turmoil, with immediate consequences for prices, markets, and geopolitical stability. But the alternatives offer no easy escape. The clean energy transition is not dissolving dependencies; it is rewiring them towards critical minerals, technologies, and supply chains that are increasingly concentrated and contested. In this landscape, energy is not just a commodity but a tool of leverage. Bringing together ministers and leading experts from across continents, this session will confront the implications of the current crisis: what will it mean for the world’s and Europe’s energy security, and how will it reshape global energy geopolitics, markets, and policy choices in the years ahead?

Europe’s future security and competitiveness depend on sustaining frontier technological and industrial leadership. In this high-level conversation, senior policymakers, ministers and leaders from major technology companies will engage in a fast-paced exchange on the realities of building, scaling and sustaining frontier technological leadership. The discussion will explore how to navigate global competition, translate breakthrough ideas into industrial capacity, and align corporate strategies with Europe’s economic and strategic ambitions at a time when the race for technological leadership is accelerating.

As economic security increasingly extends into data, connectivity, mobility, and space, emerging technologies are creating opportunities but also new vulnerabilities. This forward-looking session will explore how connected systems, from vehicles to satellites and digital infrastructure, are reshaping questions of security, resilience, and strategic dependence.

Strategic technologies are increasingly drawing the fault lines of global power, making technological leadership inseparable from economic security. As competition intensifies, the question of what is truly “critical” is becoming both more contested and more consequential, spanning semiconductors, AI, quantum computing, critical raw materials, and defence capabilities. In a landscape defined by deepening dependencies and strategic rivalry, criticality is no longer a purely technical assessment but a geopolitical judgement shaped by vulnerability, leverage, and long-term strategic value. Bringing together high-level policymakers, technologists, business leaders and experts, this session will confront a central dilemma: how can Europe and likeminded partners define, prioritise, and protect what truly matters, balancing openness with protection, integrating trusted external technologies where appropriate, and drawing clear lines where strategic autonomy requires restraint in an increasingly fragmented technological order?

Europe’s automotive industry sits at the centre of intensifying technological, industrial, and geopolitical competition. This conversation will examine how European manufacturers can navigate trade tensions, Chinese overcapacity, electrification, software-defined vehicles, and growing strategic dependencies while remaining globally competitive in the next era of mobility.

The global economic order is increasingly shaped by power, leverage, and coercion rather than predictable rules and mutual benefit. While much of international trade still operates within existing frameworks, governments and businesses are adapting to a more fragmented and confrontational geoeconomic landscape. This closing session will examine whether international economic cooperation can be renewed under these conditions: how to rebuild resilient frameworks, manage the tensions between openness and economic security, and preserve effective global governance among like-minded partners in an era of intensifying strategic rivalry. What are the trade-offs between open rules-based trade and economic security and how to deal with them amongst like-minded partners?