However, a new architecture is already taking shape. For the first time, the EU has included a structured framework in binding legislation allowing differentiate between partners whose companies can fully participate in the critical technological ecosystem, partners who can access it under certain conditions, and actors whose legal environments make integration structurally incompatible with European safety requirements. In many ways, these regulations can be understood as a form of risk reduction strategy (de-risking) face à la Chineeven if their primary objective is to strengthen the resilience and competitiveness of the EU.
This framework is not expressed through lists of hostile countries or sanctions regimes. Rather, it operates through non-tariff criteria governing access to specific segments of the European market and to preferential policy instruments. The business concepts “domestic undertaking” and “associated third country” are, ultimately, regulatory translations of the broader idea of ”trusted partner”. Although the Chips Act 2.0 and the CADA do not use this terminology, they give it a very concrete legal form.
Copyright image : Odd ANDERSEN / AFP
David Amiel, Minister Delegate for the Civil Service and State Reform; Anne Le Henanff, Minister for Artificial Intelligence; Roland Lescure, Minister of Economy and Finance; Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic; Friedrich Merz, German Chancellor; Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President of the European Union for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, and German Minister of Digitalization and State Modernization, Karsten Wildberger, at the Sovereignty Summit of Europe, on November 18, 2025 on the EUREF campus in Berlin.
