{"id":466872,"date":"2026-10-05T18:39:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T16:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/10\/05\/macron-e-merz-lue-abbia-nuovi-poteri-per-escludere-dal-mercato-unico-chi-gioca-sporco\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T18:59:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T16:59:23","slug":"macron-and-merz-the-eu-should-have-new-powers-to-exclude-those-who-play-dirty-from-the-single-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/10\/05\/macron-and-merz-the-eu-should-have-new-powers-to-exclude-those-who-play-dirty-from-the-single-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Macron and Merz: The EU should have new powers to exclude those who play dirty from the single market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 A safeguard mechanism which, if necessary, would lead to the immediate exclusion from the European single market of third countries seeking to prevent the restoration of fair conditions of competition. Signed by Emmanuel Macron<\/strong> and Friedrich Merz<\/strong>. The request, put forward in a letter from the French President and the German Chancellor to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, aims to give Brussels a powerful economic weapon in the event of escalating trade disputes. \u201cWe need a credible instrument in the hands of the Commission that allows for decisive and systematic responses (…) up to and including immediate exclusion from the single market, should this prove necessary,\u201d reports the publication WirtschaftsWoche<\/em><\/a>, which has seen the letter. The tone is general, and no specific country is singled out, but Paris and Berlin appear to have their sights set on China, <\/a>which has long been accused of flooding world markets with low-cost exports through substantial subsidies and exchange rate manipulation.<\/span> <\/p>\n

In fact, the instrument in question would enable the Commission to \u201ccounter cases where third countries deliberately attempt to undermine the restoration of a level playing field and a fair market through political or systematic distortions of our internal market.\u201d Put simply, this means allowing the EU to respond with equal force should it be subjected to tariffs, sanctions or an economic attack. This could go as far as excluding individual companies or an entire country from the internal market<\/strong>. According to the plans, it would be up to the Commission to put forward the proposal to activate this mechanism, which, under the reverse qualified majority procedure, would be adopted unless a sufficient number of Member States opposed it. <\/p>\n

The aim<\/strong>, according to reports emerging from the two capitals, is not to fuel escalation, but to ensure that Europe has “equal tools” compared with other economic blocs<\/strong> and “flexible responses” should the need arise. In short, a sort of \u201csecond-strike weapon\u201d to be used in response to measures taken by others. This is because developments in recent years have shown that trade can increasingly be used as \u201ca weapon\u201d and that the EU\u2019s instruments, including tariffs and anti-dumping investigations, \u201care not sufficient.\u201d <\/p>\n

The proposal comes just a few days before Trade Commissioner Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d<\/strong> is due to travel to Beijing on Thursday for the final round of negotiations in a four-month process, during which Brussels has been seeking to rebalance the EU\u2019s trade relations with China. Meanwhile, the European Commission \u201cwarmly welcomes\u201d the Franco-German initiative<\/strong>, describing it as \u201ca valuable contribution to the ongoing debate on how the EU can best address geo-economic risks and global macroeconomic imbalances.\u201d The document \u201cis in line with the European Commission\u2019s work and with the President\u2019s clear position on competitiveness and the approach towards trading partners, including China,\u201d adds the spokesperson for Trade, Olof Gill<\/strong>. \u201cThe issue will be discussed further at next week\u2019s European Council<\/strong>,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a letter to von der Leyen, the two leaders emphasise the need to take strong measures against countries and companies seeking to prevent the restoration of a level playing field. The Commission welcomes the document \u201cwith great approval\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":466866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705],"tags":[26430,25916,26246,31153,25788,33394,25921],"class_list":["post-466872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-cina-en","tag-macron-en","tag-merz-en","tag-market-unique-en","tag-ue","tag-von-der-leyen-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466873,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466872\/revisions\/466873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}