BILZEN-HOESELT, Belgium (AP) — European Union leaders broadly agreed Thursday on a plan to restructure the 27-nation bloc’s economy to make it more competitive as they face antagonism from U.S. President Donald Trump, strong-arm tactics from China and hybrid threats blamed on Russia.
Meeting in a Belgian castle, the EU leaders agreed an “action plan” with a strict timeline for the economic restructuring, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
said. “The pressure and the sense of urgency is enormous, and that can move mountains,” she said.
The plan, to be presented formally in March, would include measures to coordinate upgrading energy grids, deepen financial integration and loosen merger regulations to allow European firms to grow to better compete globally, she said.
“We need European champions,” von der Leyen said.
European Council President António Costa described the meeting as a “real game changer” as leaders threw their weight behind plans to further integrate and simplify the bloc's financial systems.
The meeting had started with an image of unity between the two traditional power centers of the EU after each had publicly staked out different strategic positions. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived together, crossing a drawbridge side by side into the 16th-century Alden Biesen castle.
“We share this sense of urgency that Europe must take action,” Macron said while standing on a blue welcome carpet next to his German counterpart.
“We want to make this European Union faster, we want to make it better, and above all we want to ensure that we have competitive industry in Europe," Merz said.
Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni lead a wing of the bloc calling for deregulation, rebooting Europe's relationship with Washington and forging trade deals like the recent one struck with the Mercosur nations of South America.
The EU "cannot continue to hyperregulate," said Meloni. “There's no time to lose.”
France instead is leading a push for “strategic autonomy ” — meaning a bloc less dependent on Washington.
Macron argues that EU countries should buy exclusively from European producers as the continent pursues greater military spending as a response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Merz and Meloni say purchases should be from both foreign and European firms.
In comments to reporters as he arrived, Macron said he was urging his partners to protect “sectors that are particularly under threat” like cleantech, chemicals, steel, the car industry and defense.
“There is also an increased pressure on us, with competition — sometimes unfair competition — that is very intense, with very strong pressure from China, tariffs imposed on us by the Americans with threats of coercive practices," Macron said.
EU leaders will also debate new financial instruments to protect the bloc in a global trading system rocked by Trump's blitzkrieg of tariffs and China's restricting of critical mineral exports.
Macron is renewing his call for the EU to be able to borrow money, which he described as “Eurobonds for the future" that would provide an opportunity “to challenge the hegemony of the dollar.”
Most leaders are calling for action along the lines of the economic stimulus strategy called for by Mario Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank. The 2024 plan includes cutting regulations, making infrastructure investments and establishing trade ties with more countries.
Both Draghi and Enrico Letta, a former Italian Prime Minister, beseeched leaders assembled in the castle to drastically restructure and integrate the bloc's economy.
“We have way too many barriers that prevent money and capital from moving from one country to another, way too many obstacles to simplification,” said Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament.
“No more words, but more action," said Metsola, who like Merz and von der Leyen is a leading figure in the European People’s Party, which is the largest bloc in the European Parliament and claims 13 heads of EU states as members.
Citizens across the bloc are hungry for a stronger EU and a more unified, stronger and ambitious leadership amid military threats, economic pressures and climate instability, according to an official EU poll, Eurobarometer.
“There has never been a better time for European leaders, national political leaders, to actually leverage on these European citizens’ demand for greater European action,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at the HEC Paris business school.
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Associated Press writers Mike Corder in The Hague, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Nicole Winfield in Rome and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
___ This story has been corrected to reflect the characterization of Merz’s and Meloni’s position on the 2024 Draghi report.
