Merz and Macron said the Commission should be empowered to restrict, or even completely cut off, imports from countries seen as creating “severe and systematic distortions” in the single market. In their letter and a joint position paper, they call for urgent action, saying the EU’s existing trade defense toolbox “does not suffice anymore.”
“Without delaying the full use of the existing set of instruments, we need a comprehensive framework to complement our toolbox with new legal instruments — in a lean and non-bureaucratic way,” they wrote.
One senior German official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, described the tool as a “second-strike weapon” that could be deployed in the event of an escalating trade war.
“We can see that certain players have important, powerful instruments at their disposal,” the official said, pointing to the sweeping so-called Section 301 tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s dominance of critical-mineral supply chains. The EU, they explained, needed its own countermeasures.
“When trade rules are not respected, we need to be credible regarding the fact that access to the internal market cannot be guaranteed,” said an official from Macron’s office, noting that “dialogue does not preclude our determination to protect our most vulnerable sectors.”
The French official said the procedure for activating the new measures should be based on the one that already exists for anti-dumping cases. This allows the Commission to take action without first seeking a green light from EU capitals.
