12 October, 2026 10h – 11h30

Online Conference via Zoom

Registration

The international trading system has become a primary theatre of geopolitical competition. Tariffs, sanctions, and technology controls have replaced dialogue as the default instruments of economic relations. And the EU finds itself caught between two simultaneous pressures: a more assertive China competing aggressively in key industrial sectors, and a United States that can no longer be taken for granted as a partner committed to open, rules-based trade. As the transatlantic relationship is tested and the WTO increasingly sidelined, the EU faces a defining question: can it defend its economic interests and pursue strategic autonomy without abandoning the multilateral order it has long championed – and without being forced to choose sides?

10h00 Discussion

Elvire Fabry, Director of the Trade and Economic Security programme at the Jacques Delors Institute, Paris

Alicia García-Herrero, Senior Fellow at Bruegel, Brussels

Maaike Heijmans, Programme Lead Geopolitics of Technology and Digitalisation and Research Fellow at Clingendael, The Hague

Mario Holzner, Executive Director at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), Vienna

Moderation:Dietmar Schweisgut, Secretary General of the Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe

11h30 End of the discussion