Europe’s Power Play: Stronger Partnerships Could Beat Higher Walls
A factory needs reliable supplies of chips. An exporter needs markets that will remain open. A government needs to know that refusing a powerful country’s demands will not leave its economy exposed. Across Europe, these seemingly different problems lead to the same question: how can countries protect their freedom to act when trade and technology become instruments of pressure?
Bringing production home has an obvious appeal. So does raising barriers against foreign competitors. But what happens when measures designed to make Europe stronger also hurt the partners it needs most?
That dilemma lies at the heart of Europe as a Central Power: Leading the Like-Minded, Building Partnerships Worldwide, by Daniel Gros and Nathalie Tocci, both Senior Fellows at the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University (IEP@BU). Their policy brief proposes a different route to European influence: organizing a network of countries powerful enough together to resist pressure, while giving them a meaningful say in decisions.
“It should not aspire to become a big power, but rather a central one,” they write of the EU. The distinction shifts the test of success. Europe’s strength would depend on its ability to make cooperation valuable enough that others choose to sustain it.
Why Europe needs middle powers
Middle powers are countries with international influence but insufficient strength to impose their will globally. Yet the label conceals a divide.
Countries such as India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia have pursued relationships across geopolitical camps, keeping their options open and bargaining for advantage. Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia also seek room to maneuver, but share a stronger interest with Europe in preserving predictable international rules.
Gros and Tocci argue that Europe needs to work with both groups, through different kinds of partnerships. A close circle of like-minded economies could coordinate policies extensively. A wider circle could cooperate around basic international principles and specific global problems.
This is a strategic proposal, rather than an empirical test of an existing alliance. Its starting point is that Europe already has considerable economic influence, even while its political and defence integration remains incomplete. The question is how to use that influence without encouraging the same fragmentation it fears.
Acting alone has limits. The brief puts the EU’s share of the world economy and industrial output at about 15%, and declining. Recreating entire supply chains within that boundary would be extraordinarily difficult.
Partners change the calculation. According to the authors, the combined GDP of the EU and like-minded countries would exceed that of the United States, while their combined industrial strength would approach China’s.
The CORE Compact: giving partners a voice
The proposed vehicle is the Compact for Open and Resilient Economies, or CORE. Potential participants include the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia.
It could begin with a Brussels summit and a political declaration, without requiring a new institution or a formal treaty. The practical commitment would be to consult one another before adopting trade or industrial policies with significant consequences for other participants.
For the EU, this would mean inviting partners into parts of the process where decisions take shape. They could contribute to selected working and expert groups, without acquiring voting rights. Final decisions would remain subject to the EU’s own procedures.
The difference matters. A trading partner that can explain a problem while legislation is being designed has a better chance of preventing damage than one left to complain after the rules take effect.
CORE would also establish a framework for mutual assistance against economic coercion. If one participant faced restrictions on a strategic product, others could consult and cooperate to help maintain supplies. The proposal offers a mechanism for collective support, though its effectiveness would depend on what governments actually commit to doing.
From “Made in Europe” to “Made with Europe”
The compact’s most tangible implication concerns what counts as European production. Gros and Tocci propose moving towards made with Europe: treating inputs from CORE partners as equivalent to European inputs for relevant industrial preferences. Partners would make comparable commitments.
That would allow Europe to draw on capabilities it cannot easily reproduce domestically: Canadian and Australian raw materials, South Korean chips or Swiss biotechnology. It would also give those countries a direct economic stake in Europe’s resilience.
The authors’ warning about protectionism is illustrated by steel. The brief describes an EU regime that halves tariff-free import quotas and applies a 50% tariff to imports above them. Such restrictions also hit like-minded partners, potentially provoking retaliation against European exports.
Some producers might gain from reduced import competition. Others could lose access to customers abroad. The authors argue that the outcome could leave Europe producing more lower-quality steel while weakening its position in higher-quality exports.
“Leadership brings responsibility,” they write. Here, responsibility carries a concrete domestic price: European governments would sometimes have to forgo protections for favored industries to preserve a more valuable relationship with their partners. The same cooperative logic could extend to research, space and open-source software, including artificial intelligence. Pooling capabilities could help participants reduce dependencies that none can readily overcome alone.
A European strategy beyond the West
A compact among wealthy democracies would have limits. Gros and Tocci explicitly acknowledge that it could not, by itself, reshape the geopolitical contest involving the US and China. Europe would therefore need broader partnerships across the Global South. These would involve fewer shared commitments than CORE, but could still defend fundamental principles: sovereignty, opposition to territorial conquest and respect for international law.
Credibility would require Europe to confront its own double standards. Countries asked to uphold international rules will judge whether Europeans apply those rules consistently, including when their friends violate them.
The proposed wider cooperation would reach beyond individual deals on migration, energy or infrastructure. It could support joint action on climate, health, development and nuclear proliferation, alongside reforms giving emerging powers a greater voice in international institutions.
“The old order is broken, but this is hardly a good reason to have no order at all,” the authors write. That is the challenge beneath their proposal: countries need rules they can help shape, even when they disagree on much else.
For Europe, the decisive test begins close to home. Can it give partners influence before a decision becomes a dispute? Can it treat their industrial strengths as part of its own security? And can it remain united long enough to make those promises credible? The answer will help determine whether Europe’s businesses and citizens gain protection from a stronger network—or face an increasingly divided world on their own.
“The EU cannot replace the United States as global hegemon. But it can offer something more useful for the present moment: leadership without domination. That means giving likeminded partners a voice before decisions are taken, treating their inputs as part of European resilience, and avoiding unilateral measures that export costs to allies.”, the authors conclude. “Such restraint may look like a concession. It is not. In a world of predatory powers, Europe's long-term interest lies in becoming first among equals.”
Daniel Gros and Nathalie Tocci, “Europe as a Central Power: Leading the Like-Minded, Building Partnerships Worldwide”, IEP@BU Policy Briefs Series, no. 63, September 2026.
