But European diplomats said the proposed economic strategy was clearly about China. They said that it would probably take several months of debate before it becomes concrete policy, but that it was an essential first step toward preventing economic goals from undermining the European Union’s security.
Still, diplomats said that the bloc’s biggest economic powers — Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands — were not eager for what could be disruptive intervention from Brussels in their critical economic relationships with China. Those concerns could set the scene for a watering-down of the commission’s proposals.
The bloc should keep potentially hostile countries and their companies out of certain critical infrastructure, such as ports and pipelines, and ban European Union companies from exporting high-tech goods with military uses to potential adversaries, the proposal said.
The document also aims to ensure that supply chains for security-sensitive goods are not overly dependent on such countries, and to stop proprietary European technologies in artificial intelligence, chip-making or biotechnology from “leaking.”
The bloc already has a set of rules in place that seeks to address some of these concerns, but the commission said that much better and stricter rules were needed, and that they should be applied with the same zest and standards across the 27 nations. The goal, the document said, is to make sure that there are no back doors to undermining European security.
“The need for more rapid and coordinated action at E.U. level in the area of export controls has become pressing,” the proposal said, noting that “an uncoordinated proliferation of national controls by Member States would create loopholes.”
Some European countries have already tightened their economic relations with China, with the Netherlands earlier this year banning the firm ASML from exporting its advanced chip production technology there on security grounds.
The bloc is also considering targeting Chinese companies with sanctions because they are providing Russia with chips used in weapons deployed against Ukraine.
Source : Nytimes
