European Union leaders, faced with increasing global economic tensions, have agreed to explore new measures to tackle global trade imbalances and dependencies while continuing dialogue.
EU leaders "discussed ongoing efforts to strengthen EU competitiveness and strategic autonomy, increase resilience and economic security," a joint statement published on Friday read.
Although not explicitly mentioned in the summit declaration, consultations focused on China, which has a big trade surplus with the EU, also due to enormous state support.
The often cheaper Chinese competition is putting pressure on key European industries and is hampering European competitiveness also in growth-promising sectors like semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
There was agreement among EU countries that the current global economic imbalances need to be tackled, an EU official said.
EU leaders tasked the European Commission, which represents EU countries on international trade matters, to develop new measures to counter economic imbalances "to make sure that the European Union has all the instruments it needs to defend its interests and derisk," the official said.
In addition, leaders asked the EU executive "to continue engaging in a constructive dialogue with our main economic partners, to defend our economic and security interests. That dialogue needs to provide results."
At their meeting on Wednesday in the French spa town of Évian, the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) top democratic economies agreed to establish upper limits on the import of certain raw materials to reduce the risk of blackmail by countries like China.
