Designing "Buy European" Policies for Strategic Autonomy

• Sander Tordoir Cristina Caffarra Tommaso Valletti Moritz Schularick Giancarlo Spagnolo Ufuk Akcigit Dietmar Harhoff
• 16 Apr 2025

The “Draghi mission” highlighted the need for major industrial policy initiatives in key strategic sectors to support European industry and reduce the productivity gap with the US. There is urgency to boost European manufacturing in sectors like defence and clean tech which are potential success stories. There is also major urgency, given recent developments in the US/EU relationship, to improve our security and resilience and create more independent digital infrastructures. “Buy European” is being discussed as a potential major plank of a multipronged industrial policy to proactively create demand for (and therefore investment in) European capabilities in these key sectors. How should these policies be best designed? How can we introduce a “local content” mandate in procurement, and demand steer for the private sector? How would they relate to other tools? How can competition economics help?

Speakers:

- Martijn Snoep (Chair, Netherlands Authority for Consumer and Markets)

- Dietmar Harhoff (Director Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Munich and CEPR)

- Ufuk Akcigit (University of Chicago and CEPR)

- Giancarlo Spagnolo (University of Rome Tor Vergata and CEPR)

- Beth Baltzan (Former Senior Policy Advisor to former US Trade Minister K. Tai)

- Moritz Schularick (Science Po, Kiel Institute for the World Economy and CEPR)

Chairs:

- Sander Tordoir (Centre for European Reform)

- Tommaso Valletti (Imperial College and CEPR)

- Cristina Caffarra (University College London)