By Véronique Chabourine, strategic analyst
In March, during the annual conference of EU ambassadors, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for a “more realistic and interest-guided European foreign policy”. The Commission advocates for a foreign policy that integrates more dimensions of security, economic partnerships, and industrial resilience, including through strengthening cooperation with partners like India, Canada, and Australia and securing European supply chains.
Recent data on the structure of international power sheds light on the stakes. According to the Real Instituto Elcano’s Global Presence Index, which measures states’ international projection in economic, military, and soft power dimensions, the EU is now one of the main poles of international presence alongside the US and China. In 2024, its global index reaches approximately 3,462 points, slightly higher than that of the US. However, this presence is largely based on economic architecture. The economic dimension overwhelmingly dominates the EU’s international projection (2,250 points compared to 1,674 for the US), while the military dimension remains significantly more limited (365 points compared to 872). Nearly two-thirds of the EU’s international presence is based on its economic dimension. Europe also has a specific leverage through its normative capacity—often referred to as the Brussels Effect—which allows it to spread its regulatory standards internationally. However, the difference lies in the American capacity to control a greater number of strategic chokepoints in the global system—financial infrastructures, critical technologies, or digital networks—that allow the mastery of certain flows on which the global economic system depends.
In this context, the strategic challenge is not to eliminate interdependencies but to rebalance relationships. The capacity to occupy or control certain chokepoints becomes an essential lever to reduce vulnerabilities and balance power relations. According to the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements, the US has a major lever through its financial centrality: the dollar still represents nearly 58% of global foreign exchange reserves and is involved in about 88% of international exchange transactions. China, on the other hand, exerts growing influence in certain critical supply chains: for example, according to the International Energy Agency, it accounts for nearly 60% of global lithium refining and over 80% of rare earth processing. These control positions are few: several analyses estimate that around twenty chokepoints currently structure the global economic system. In this context, power no longer relies solely on the intensity of economic flows but on the ability to control the infrastructures on which these flows depend.
In this context, the EU appears particularly exposed to certain strategic dependencies. An analysis by the European Commission on industrial dependencies identified 137 products for which the EU exhibits a high dependence on external suppliers, including 34 considered critical. These dependencies include rare earths and certain critical raw materials, lithium-ion batteries and several technologies crucial for the energy transition, advanced semiconductors, as well as several active pharmaceutical ingredients used in drug production. They also affect certain critical digital infrastructures and technologies, which have become essential for the functioning of numerous economic activities. Although these products represent a small share of European imports in value, their importance is systemic: they are vital for the operation of entire industrial chains.
This evolution transforms the way states mobilize their economic power. In an environment where interdependencies can be turned into instruments of coercion, the ability to defend and project interests becomes a central dimension of power. The concept of “interest-based power” can be understood as an actor’s ability to mobilize its economic, industrial, and normative instruments. It fits into a logic of smart power applied to contemporary power relations: a balance between several instruments—defense and deterrence capabilities, economic or coercive tools, and normative influence. Several recent European initiatives align with this evolution. The Chips Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act, and the Net-Zero Industry Act aim to secure certain industrial value chains and reduce European strategic dependencies. But their scope goes beyond mere industrial resilience. The Chips Act could enable the EU to consolidate structuring positions in certain key segments of the global semiconductor chain, particularly in production equipment and essential technologies for the global chip industry. The Critical Raw Materials Act aims, on the other hand, to develop European capacities in the extraction, refining, and transformation of critical raw materials, sectors where crucial control positions are at stake for global industrial chains. As for the Net-Zero Industry Act, it could promote the emergence of industrial and technological capacities in several low-carbon technologies—batteries, hydrogen, electrolyzers, or advanced energy equipment—aiming to structure the global energy transition. In other words, beyond strengthening the European industrial base and aiming to increase the industry’s share to 20% of the EU’s GDP by 2035, the challenge is also to turn these industrial policies into levers capable of creating or reinforcing true European chokepoints in strategic segments.
But these initiatives raise a more structural question: that of the EU’s ability to collectively define and organize certain industrial and technological priorities in critical sectors. Beyond economic instruments themselves, the issue is also political: it lies in the capacity of member states to agree on common priorities and sustain them over time. In this perspective, the idea of a Europe “guided by interests”, as mentioned by Ursula von der Leyen, cannot be limited to a diplomatic posture evolution.
