In the Single Market, openness is the default. But there are recognised exceptions: restrictions can be introduced when justified by evidence, for example, to protect public health, consumers, or national security. This balance ensures that openness does not undermine legitimate interests.
At the EU level, however, there is no equivalent when it comes to safeguarding the Union’s overall economic security. In an era of weaponised interdependence, coercion, and strategic dependencies, this is a dangerous gap. The EU cannot rely on fragmented national measures or improvised responses when the security of the Union’s economy is at stake.
Some might point to the new Single Market Emergency Instrument (SMEI). But SMEI is designed to preserve openness during a crisis – to keep goods, services, and people moving in exceptional circumstances. What is missing is the reverse: the capacity to suspend openness at the EU level when the evidence shows that economic security is directly threatened.
What is needed is a European ‘security override’: a framework rooted in supranational competences, evidence-based, proportionate, and transparently governed. It would allow the Union, in exceptional circumstances, to put security above openness – without fragmenting the Single Market by leaving the task to unilateral national action.
Without such an override, Europe remains vulnerable: either eroded from within by divergent member state responses or exposed from without to those ready to exploit our openness.
Fabian Zuleeg is Chief Executive and Chief Economist at the European Policy Centre.
The support the European Policy Centre receives for its ongoing operations, or specifically for its publications, does not constitute an endorsement of their contents, which reflect the views of the authors only. Supporters and partners cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
