Adam Maguire

kind of really spooked European leaders recently are the international criminal court judges who were sanctioned by the US because they issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.

That's led to them being blocked from everything from their email accounts, their digital services.

They can't use their credit cards because most major credit card companies are US based.

And we've seen now a push for the digital euro as part of an attempt to give Europeans a local option for handling transactions so they're not reliant on US tech.

So

All of this seen as kind of factors that has given more weight to those who want to see the EU start to prioritise European companies.

And really, the argument boils down to this is European taxpayer money.

More effort should be made to support European firms rather than having it boost the bottom line of American and Chinese companies.

OK, China not impressed by that.

No.

And in fairness, there are those opposing the plan within the European Union as well.

One of the arguments is that this is essentially a step towards protectionism.

And Europe is bringing forward a law that says European countries have to be prioritised over others.

And that goes against the kind of whole push of the European project.

And it could hinder Europe's ability to trade globally.

Of course, it would also disadvantage firms in other parts of the world, including those in China, which have benefited greatly from being able to sell into Europe.

And some of the areas that are in the Industrial Accelerator Act, like steel and solar panels and EVs, China has done particularly well there in Europe.

But there's also proposals within the Act that...

they don't name China, but they are clearly very much targeted at China.

There's one bit that applies to investments worth more than 100 million euro from companies based in countries that account for 40% or more of global production in certain strategic projects.