How EU industrial policy got its groove back: securitisation and governance shifts in the geoeconomic era

This paper analyzes the transformation of European Union (EU) industrial policy from market-oriented to securitised approaches. We argue that external pressures – the weaponization of economic interdependence and security-driven industrial policies by China and the United States – enabled the European Commission to reframe industrial policy through a security lens, making interventionist measures politically acceptable despite long-standing opposition from market-liberal Member States. Our theoretical contribution specifies three mechanisms through which securitisation transforms EU governance without treaty change: (1) bureaucratic shifts creating new coordination bodies focused on economic security; (2) procedural shifts from ex-post competition enforcement to ex-ante risk screening and emergency powers; and (3) coalition shifts that co-opt business opposition by framing intervention as necessary to protect, rather than distort, the Single Market. Through four case studies – the EU Chips Act, the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, Important Projects of Common European Interest, and the Critical Raw Materials Act – we demonstrate how the Commission acts entrepreneurially to deepen integration in a core state power domain. However, securitisation has outpaced formal legal change: fiscal constraints and persistent Member State divisions limit the EU's ability to match U.S. and Chinese scale, revealing both the possibilities and limits of securitised industrial policy.