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This paper analyzes the transformation of European Union (EU) industrial policy from market-oriented to securitised approaches. We argue that external pressures – the weaponization of economic interdependence and security-driven industrial policies by China and the United States – enabled the European Commission to reframe industrial policy through a security lens, making interventionist measures politically acceptable despite long-standing opposition from market-liberal Member States. Our theoretical contribution specifies three mechanisms through which securitisation transforms EU governance without treaty change: (1) bureaucratic shifts creating new coordination bodies focused on economic security; (2) procedural shifts from ex-post competition enforcement to ex-ante risk screening and emergency powers; and (3) coalition shifts that co-opt business opposition by framing intervention as necessary to protect, rather than distort, the Single Market. Through four case studies – the EU Chips Act, the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, Important Projects of Common European Interest, and the Critical Raw Materials Act – we demonstrate how the Commission acts entrepreneurially to deepen integration in a core state power domain. However, securitisation has outpaced formal legal change: fiscal constraints and persistent Member State divisions limit the EU's ability to match U.S. and Chinese scale, revealing both the possibilities and limits of securitised industrial policy.
Heldt et al. (Tue,) studied this question.