Friend-Shoring Security Trumps Economics? : A European perspective

The European Union has always championed open and rules-based trade, fostered the multilateral trading system of the World Trade Organisation. However, growing geopolitical tensions and greater geostrategic and geoeconomic great power competition, as well as shocks for global supply chains because of the COVID pandemic and Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, have brought to the fore the risks inherent in certain economic dependencies.
Some of these inherent risks are serious: if not effectively addressed they pose severe risks for the functioning of societies, economies, open the door for statecraft, impact on the strategic interests of a country and its ability to act and counter-act.
Thus, the world has become more contested and geopolitical, economic security moves centre stage, which the EU Strategy on Economic Security aims to address, in order not to fall prey to economic coercion or blackmail. This includes the essential life streams of today’s economies: the use of data combined with AI, energy, new raw materials like rare earth and minerals particularly needed in emerging technologies.
The talk will deal with the envisaged measures, examine whether de-linking, de-globalising, de-risking and the corresponding near-shoring, re-shoring or friend-shoring provide the answers. Special focus will be on the analysis of the latter concept, its viability and costs and its significance for the development and control of new emerging technologies.