5 February 2026 – With “Made in Europe,” European Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy Stéphane Séjourné is promoting a me-too strategy modelled on the United States or China. What this very special Frenchman has overlooked, however, is something rather fundamental.
- "Made in Europe" – The Me-Too Strategy of a Very Special Frenchman
- France Runs a Massive Intra-EU Trade Deficit
- Europe's Hidden Internal Trade Barriers Reach Up to Tariff Equivalents of 100%
- Economic Conditions in the EU Are Far from Homogeneous
- "Made in Europe": Imposed from Above and Doomed to Fail
- "European Style" – Suddenly Without Bureaucracy?
- Record High: Commission Pushes Through 1,456 Legal Acts
“Made in Europe” – The Me-Too Strategy of a Very Special Frenchman
On 2 February, Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, used opinion pieces published in more than a dozen European business newspapers to advocate a “Made in Europe” strategy – essentially a me-too approach inspired by policies pursued by countries such as the United States or China.
What the French-born Executive Vice-President – responsible, among other things, for the EU’s Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs – has overlooked is a crucial point in his “Made in Europe” plans: a “Buy America” strategy may function in a single, sovereign nation-state with a homogenous market like the United States. In a European Union that is both an economic and political bloc of 27 sovereign states with vastly different strengths and weaknesses, such an approach is fundamentally unworkable.
France Runs a Massive Intra-EU Trade Deficit
In 2024, France recorded the largest intra-EU trade deficit at EUR 122.4 billion. By contrast, the Netherlands posted an intra-EU trade surplus of EUR 270.3 billion in goods trade.
These figures alone illustrate how divergent economic realities within the EU actually are.
Europe’s Hidden Internal Trade Barriers Reach Up to Tariff Equivalents of 100%
The fact that the EU is not a single state-unlike the United States – is also reflected in the scale of non-tariff barriers within the Single Market. In November 2025, the European Central Bank stated that these hidden obstacles correspond to tariff equivalents of around 65% for goods and up to 100% for services. The Commissioner responsible, Mr. Séjourné, has not yet presented a strategy for dismantling these internal EU tariffs. So “Made in Europe” would make everything even more expensive than it already is.
Economic Conditions in the EU Are Far from Homogeneous
Economic realities across the EU are anything but uniform. There are stark disparities in average net incomes between Western and Eastern Europe. In 2024, the highest average annual gross wages for full-time employees were recorded in Luxembourg (EUR 83,000), followed by Denmark (EUR 71,600) and Ireland (EUR 61,100). At the lower end were Bulgaria (EUR 15,400), Greece (EUR 18,000) and Hungary (EUR 18,500).
The same divergence is visible in GDP per capita. In 2025, Luxembourg reached around EUR 147,000 per capita, while Bulgaria stood at just EUR 20,500.
“Made in Europe”: Imposed from Above and Doomed to Fail
Against this backdrop, the imposed “Made in Europe” me-too strategy-once again originating from economically unsuccessful France-appears doomed from the outset. It looks like yet another attempt to externalise France’s internal problems – excessive debt, political instability, and an economic model focused on state-owned and heavily subsidised corporations – rather than addressing them through genuine structural reform.
This pattern is also evident in current tariff proposals, which primarily benefit France while significantly disadvantaging other EU Member States, such as Ireland. With an intra-EU trade deficit of EUR 122.4 billion, Paris now seems willing to use almost any instrument available.
“European Style” – Suddenly Without Bureaucracy?
“And we will apply them in a ‘European way’. That means without bureaucracy. We will assess the economic impact in advance, involve our trusted international partners and comply with international law.”
This statement alone exposes the proposal as disingenuous.
Record High: Commission Pushes Through 1,456 Legal Acts
In 2025 alone, the European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen initiated 1,456 legal acts-the highest number since 2010. This came despite repeated promises from Brussels to drastically reduce bureaucracy.
The Commission may argue that “the number alone is not what matters.” Yet the regulatory chaos surrounding the CBAM CO2 tax alone now runs to nearly 3,000 A4 pages.
Adding to this farce is a list of more than 1,000 signatories – around one third of them from France – supporting this initiative, often with individual corporate subsidiaries and derivatives signing separately. This makes the list look artificially inflated rather than genuinely representative of European business. Particularly so given that many of these companies are already heavily subsidised and overprotected.
This is not a meaningful cross-section of European industry.
Thorsten Gerber, CEO of the Gerber Group, commented today: “Greetings from the entrepreneurial Mittelstand: what exactly do you still want? Do you really think this is going to save you?”
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