Carnicero Urabayen, Carlos

With transatlantic trade tensions escalating fast, and the United States rolling out a new wave of tariffs on key partners—including the European Union—Europe faces a moment of reckoning for its trade strategy. In the latest Future is Blue podcast, I sat down with two top experts to unpack what’s at stake: Ignacio García Bercero, non-resident fellow at Bruegel and former EU chief trade negotiator with the U.S., and Miguel Ángel González Simón, economist at Funcas.

In the aftermath of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, countries such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, and Italy became synonymous with economic fragility. Yet, under a decade on, a remarkable narrative shift is underway, with these so-called peripheral economies now outpacing Europe's traditional economic powerhouses in growth, investor confidence, and reform momentum.

As geopolitical tensions rise and the transatlantic alliance faces uncertainty, the question of Europe’s defence capabilities has become more pressing than ever.

In a rapidly changing global landscape, the European Union (EU) faces unprecedented challenges to its industrial production and trade relationships. From the impacts of the ongoing war in Ukraine to increasing tensions with the United States and China, Europe’s economic model, long reliant on exports, is being put to the test. This was the focus of the latest Future is Blue podcast episode, where I hosted Aslak Berg, Research Fellow at the Center for European Reform, and Miguel Ángel González Simón, economist at Funcas, for an insightful discussion on the EU’s vulnerabilities and paths forward.