Old continent dependent on the USA and China in several key sectors. And the opposite? European Commission made a supply map.
Os USA ea China never made an official statement announcing that the Europe is dependent of your materials.
But isolated reports or statements have emerged that, in practice, point to European dependencies on the two world economic powers; mainly in rare earths or magnets (China) and in energy or defense (USA), or even in semiconductors or software.
A recent report from the European Parliament shows that the European Union “heavily depends” on China for the supply of elements of rare earths. China controls 60% of global production, a position that is unlikely to change in the near future. From China, all heavy rare earths, 85% of light ones and 98% of rare earth magnets arrive in the European Union (EU).
It is data like this that led Stéphane Séjourné, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, to say that the EU is “more than 100% dependent” on China for rare earth magnets and, therefore, “we need to reduce our dependence on all countries, particularly on some countries like China”.
Still on this subject, a message apparently arrived from Beijing reassuring: “Rare earths were not, are not and will not be a problem between China and Europe”, assured Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.
In relation to the USA, and with the start of the war in Ukraine, Europe practically stopped importing natural gas from Russia and now depends much more on the USA.
Spain’s Minister of Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, has already warned that, despite the “fundamental role” of gas that comes from the USA, it is important to look at other sources, such as Qatar.
And the other side?
Therefore, Europe appears to be very dependent on the US and China in key sectors of the global economy.
But there is the lesser known side, the other side of the coin: China and the USA also depend on technologies, machinery and chemicals that come from Europe, also in key sectors.
This approach Europe’s “secret weapon” and informs that the European Commission has already made a map with the chains supply global and determined that the China and the US are more dependent on Europe than previously thought.
The European Union therefore wants to explore these “inverse dependencies” in a more strategic way – in case the customs dispute or restrictions on Chinese exports intensify again.
Also according to the German newspaper, economists and experts from the European Commission examined in detail, for the first time, all relevant EU exports and technologies to determine whether they are difficult to replace by other economies.
In Brussels, the aim would be a more realistic assessment of the EU’s negotiating position.
Experts have identified products that go far beyond the semiconductors that come from ASML, in the Netherlands.
According to this new analysis, China and the US depend on technology European cutting-edge in many other areas: China depends 98% on components from the sector aerospace EU, including launch systems and precision sensors, and in up to 99% of certain medicines; for irradiation devices for radiotherapy, dependence on Europe is 88%.
The identified product groups also include highly specialized machines and equipment for industry: machines, tools and equipment for chemical and automobile production, components for railway technology (locomotives and signaling systems), special steel for shielding, high-performance ball bearings, certain chemicals and lasers.
Industry sources further stated that, Without German machines, the US would no longer be able to produce its most advanced weapons.
Precisely from Germany, Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute, wrote that “knowing the vulnerabilities of the other side does not automatically translate into an advantage, but it is an indispensable starting point”.
