Buy European – Protection of Industry or Dangerous Isolation?
17/March/2026
16:00
PLACE
Zoom
LANGUAGE
German
After ‘Made in China’ and ‘Buy American’, do we also need a ‘Buy European’ campaign?
The European Commission is in favour of this – arguing that European industry must be protected from subsidised goods flooding the European market at low prices. State subsidies for products such as solar cells or electric cars should therefore only be granted if a certain proportion of their components are manufactured in Europe.
Does this active industrial policy create equal terms of global competition, or does it lead to harmful isolationism?
We will discuss this in our next New Economy Short Cut: Buy European – Protection of Industry or Dangerous Isolation? with Armin Steinbach, Chief Economist at the Federal Ministry of Finance, on Tuesday, 17 March, at 4:00 p.m. – via Zoom.
The event will be held in German. We look forward to your participation!
Armin Steinbach
Armin Steinbach is Professor of Law and Economics, European Law and International Law at HEC Paris and Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn. As government official for more than ten years, Armin headed the fiscal policy division in the German Ministry of Finance. Since June 2025 he has been Chief Economist at the German Federal Ministry of Finance.