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Publisher: Painting Elliot
Before attending the EU summit, German Prime Minister Martin Schulz warned that the European Union had to undertake comprehensive economic reforms or it would become a game of China and the United States.
As a matter of fact, France, which is also the leader of the European Union, has been calling for European independence in recent years, warning that the European Union cannot become a "vassal" of the United States. As a result, it was ridiculed by the German Defense Minister. von der Leyen, a representative of the pro-American faction, with the support of Germany, also successfully * the president of the European Commission.
Preliminary
At the Munich Security Conference in early 2025, German Chancellor Scholz's speech broke the traditional tone of European diplomacy. Facing the U.S. delegation in the audience, he publicly stated that "Europe cannot always be a vassal of others in terms of security and economy." This remark was regarded as a clear declaration of Germany leading the EU to seek strategic autonomy.
At this time, Europe is mired in multiple pressures: the "America First" signal released by Trump after his return to the White House has continued to expand the rift in the transatlantic alliance, and the energy and defense burden brought about by the Russia-Ukraine conflict has made Germany see clearly the risks of relying on external forces.
The EU’s defence dependence on the United States has long been deeply rooted, and military protection under the NATO framework lacks Europe’s ability to respond autonomously in the field of security.
Data in 2024 show that the total defense investment of European NATO allies reached US $380 billion, accounting for 2% of total GDP for the first time. However, most of these investments are focused on cooperating with the strategic deployment of the United States, rather than building an independent European defense system.
The issue of "responsibility transfer" that Trump may promote in his second term has made Germany worry that the United States will pass on more security costs to Europe, which directly accelerates the EU's defense autonomy process.
In March 2024, the European Commission published the European Defence Industrial Strategy, the first European Defence Industry Special Strategy, which clearly outlined the transition to the state of war industry, and in June, the Strategic Agenda 2024-2029 further reiterated the increase in military spending, while emphasizing the complementarity of EU defence capabilities with NATO rather than its dependence.
Most symbolically, the new Commission specifically set up the position of Commissioner responsible for defence and space, even though the current powers are limited, is still seen as an important step in Europe’s breakthrough of defence autonomy.
The passive situation in the energy sector has also plagued Germany.After the Ukrainian crisis, the U.S. share of LNG imports in Europe has reached 50%, but the price of U.S. LNG landing far exceeds the price of Russian pipeline natural gas, and only in 2024 Germany will cause industrial losses of more than 20 billion euros due to rising energy costs.
This economic crash led Germany to push the EU to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy, while resuming energy cooperation with Central Asian countries, trying to get rid of energy supply dependency on the United States, to reserve the potential game with the United States in the economic and trade field.
Find autonomous space under pressure
The escalation of Sino-US trade conflict has plunged the EU, which is caught in the middle, into geo-economic difficulties. The United States continues to pressure the EU to "decouple" from China in fields such as chips and new energy, requiring it to join the export control alliance to China, but Germany knows that the economic ties between Europe and China are difficult to separate.
China has been Germany's largest trading partner for many consecutive years. Although the bilateral trade volume between China and Germany will decline slightly due to the impact of the global economy in 2024, it will still remain at 240 billion euros. The German auto giant's market share in China accounts for more than 30% of its global sales. The chemical and machinery manufacturing industries are more dependent on the stability of China's supply chain.
Faced with pressure from the United States, Germany chose to replace "decoupling" with "risk removal" and pushed the EU to formulate an independent strategy towards China. 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Europe. Germany takes the opportunity to lead high-frequency interactions between China and Europe. From the celebration reception in Beijing to the theme forum of the EU delegation in China, a series of activities have created an atmosphere for bilateral cooperation.
At the upcoming EU-China summit in July, Germany has joined France in drafting the agenda to deepen cooperation in areas such as climate change and the digital economy, while seeking direct dialogue on economic and trade frictions rather than blindly from the U.S. sanctions list.
This strategy has received widespread response within the European Union, and the report of the Institute for International Affairs of the University of Fudan pointed out that in the context of the Trump administration, the EU's willingness to expand diversified diplomacy has been significantly strengthened, and cooperation with China has become an important support for its strategic autonomy.
In the field of science and technology, Germany refused to join the extreme restrictions imposed on China by the US-led "Quad Alliance for Chips", and instead pushed the EU to introduce supplementary provisions to the European Chip Act to maintain competitiveness in the semiconductor field by increasing local R & D investment and selective cooperation with China.
This gesture of "not choosing sidelines" is essentially Germany's leadership of the EU in the Chinese-American scientific and technological competition to compete for third-party speech and avoid becoming a victim of the game of great powers.
Building the physical foundation of "challenge arena"
Germany's confidence in promoting the EU's strategic autonomy comes from the integration of its internal economy and policies. After the EU completes the election of the new European Parliament and European Commission in 2024, Germany and France will accelerate a number of integration measures.
In the industrial field, in response to the outflow crisis of the manufacturing industry triggered by the U.S. "Inflation Cutting Act", the EU launched a "European industrial recovery plan" of up to € 35 billion, focusing on supporting German advanced industries such as automobiles, batteries, renewable energy, through subsidies and tax preferences to retain core production capacity, and form a competitive position with China and the United States in the field of high-end manufacturing.
Supply chain security has become the core of integration. Germany has led the establishment of the EU supply chain early warning mechanism to conduct comprehensive investigations of critical minerals, medical supplies and other fields. At the same time, it has signed resource cooperation agreements with Latin American and African countries to reduce its dependence on Sino-US supply chains.
In September 2024, at the sixth meeting of the European-American Trade and Technology Committee, the EU rejected the unified supply chain exclusivity clause proposed by the United States and made it clear that it would retain space for cooperation with China in non-sensitive fields. Behind this position is Germany. A strong push from industry.
In terms of diplomatic coordination, Germany has unified its member states' positions through mechanisms such as the "informal meeting of EU foreign ministers" to deal with China-US influence competition in international affairs.
In response to the anti-China agenda led by the United States at the G7 summit and NATO's "Indo-Pacific Partnership" meeting, Germany joined Italy, Spain and other countries to put forward the "EU characteristic" of the Indo-Pacific strategy, stressing that economic cooperation prioritizes political confrontation and avoids being tied to the U.S. in a geo-game.
Although this internal coordination still faces differences among Central and Eastern European countries, it has formed a strategic autonomous consensus with France and Germany as the core.
Real Challenges and the Future
Germany’s leadership in the EU is not straightforward: differences in defence spending within the EU, central-eastern European countries’ dependence on the United States, and the short-term costs of energy transition can limit strategic autonomy.
The United States 'pressure on the European Union is also escalating. The Trump administration has let out rumors that it may impose tariffs on European cars in retaliation for the EU's tendency to autonomy.
In terms of relations with China, how to balance cooperation and competition and avoid simultaneous confrontation with China and the United States tests Germany's diplomatic wisdom.
However, geopolitical reality has made strategic autonomy an inevitable choice for the EU. The advancement of agendas such as the series of dialogues on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the EU in 2025 and the EU-China Summit show that the EU is unwilling to choose a side between China and the United States.
conclusion
The establishment of the defence commissioner under the European Defence Industrial Strategy marks that Europe’s autonomy in the field of security is shaping.
Germany as the economic engine and political core of the European Union, its pushed strategic transformation is not only about the future of Europe, but will also re-shape the global multipolar pattern. This game with China and the United States is essentially the re-definition of the EU's international position under pressure, which will profoundly affect the world order in the next decade.