Committee on International Trade Ordinary meeting
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INTA European Parliament
Follow its sittingsIuliu Winkler
So, so it's about, about strengthening the EU's economic security. This was a resolution which was adopted by the European Parliament just before the summer break, as you remember. It underlines several very important aspects about the European Union's prosperity, which is tightly linked to international trade and investment, while all the same, in the same time, its deep integration makes the European Union vulnerable to disruptions and economic pressure from third country actors. In order to tackle these sensibilities, we deemed it essential to produce a study that would map recent cases of economic coercion directed at the European Union and also assess their impact from legal perspective on the recent anti-coercion instrument.
I have online, as I was informed due to an airport mishap happening, I have, we have the two authors of the study online present in our committee's debate this afternoon. It is Lucia Taioli and Matteo Villa, both are representing Italian Institute for International Political Studies. They have identified a quite impressive catalog of economic coercion events against the European Union, 41 instances of economic coercion, and they have examined three of those in a particular focus: the Chinese restrictions on rare earths exports, secondly the United States pressure on the EU digital regulation rules, and thirdly Indonesia's limits of the European Union dairy and alcoholic products. Of course, after the presentation we will have a debate. We are quite short on time, dear colleagues.
Madame Taioli, Monsieur Villa, I am very sorry for your mishap, but you have the floor now together for 12 minutes and please divide the time among yourselves as you see fit. You have the floor, please.
Lucia Taioli
Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation to present this first draft of this study on strengthening the EU resilience.
The study has mentioned, has been conducted by some scholars at ISPI in Milan, together with other scholars from Poland, from Austria and from Germany. The study aims to highlight how economic pressure has been increasing vis-à-vis the European Union because the geoeconomic environment has changed. Over time, we know that interdependencies have increased, and this is very good in terms of economic efficiency and overall welfare, but unfortunately, this increased interdependencies have been exploited sometimes to put pressure on the European Union, on European firms and on some of its members. So interdependencies are an intrinsic element of economic transactions and economic relations, but they are have used, have been misused in the recent years.
So we consider in within this environment the economic security doctrine that the European Union has been developing in the recent years, and we focused especially on the anti-coercion instrument that has been developed more recently. And we consider, as has been mentioned, a number of studies focusing on potential coercion and whether the instrument would be a good tool to face this circumstances. And we end up the study drawing some lessons and recommendations. Now, we think that gathering a good database on the events that have occurred and on the studies that have occurred is important to better use this important instrument that has been developed. So at the core of the study is precisely this catalogue of cases, because coercion is not always obvious to identify, it's not always obvious to understand which type of pressure is put on the European Union or European Union firms and what is exactly the target of the coercion.
So this is why we think that having a strong and well-organized database is absolutely essential for any type of policy decision. In order to treat in a systematic and similar way all the cases, they were coded to have indices about the relevance, about their importance and impact on the European Union. As it has been mentioned in the study, we as an example, we develop three specific circumstances. I won't go into details of these studies. You can find them in the paper because I would like to focus on the general lessons that we have been drawing from these studies.
First of all, let me highlight that indeed, not only in the general world scenario, but specifically with respect to the European Union, we have been accounting for an increasing pressure on the European Union, which is accumulating over time.
One of the elements that needs to be highlighted from the study is precisely the fact that in many, many cases, pressure keeps on going over time and accumulates as new cases are starting on top of existing ones. So it's very important not to treat cases as isolated ones, but to consider them together as a systematic attitude that some countries might have with respect to the European Union. We have seen that a large number of cases are coming from China. This is not unexpected, of course. But we also see that the second player that has been putting very strong pressure on the European Union is the United States.
This is to some extent less expected in the sense that we are used to consider the United States a very close economic partner of the European Union, but we know that the attitude has been changing to some extent in the last few years. And the other main country from which pressure has been coming was Russia, especially, of course, after the invasion of Ukraine. And this is very much related to the energy markets, of course, and the sanctions that have been put on Russia after the war in Ukraine.
It also, it is also important, as the study highlights, to remember though that it's not only very large countries and big economic players that might in fact exert a relevant pressure. We have also a very good number of mid-sized economies, Indonesia has been mentioned as one example, that have been putting a relevant pressure on the European Union. So it's important to keep in mind that pressure might come from very, very different areas of the world, both from traditional allies and from countries with which relationships might have been less smooth also in the past. Now, from the analysis, as we said, we try to derive a number of lessons and suggestions in order to use in the most effective way the important instrument that has been developed, the anti-coercion instrument.
Overall, the study suggests that this instrument is very consistent with the cases that we have examined in terms of a response. But the main point that we would like to highlight is that as it is suggested a number of times, this ACI instrument should work first of all as a deterrence. And deterrence works if it is clear how the instrument operates, when it can be applied, which is the time in which it is going to be used and under which conditions. So an essential element that has to be kept in mind is precisely that the signals of pressure have to be collected carefully. It's very important to keep a very close connection with firms operating on international markets as firms might receive pressure signals before governments actually receive it.
So a very close cooperation with economic actors operating on international market is one of the key elements. It's also very important to identify ex-ante the potential dependencies and the potential areas in which a pressure can be exerted in order to develop alternatives and make sure that it is possible to find ways out which are not too costly for the European Union. And as I said, it's very also important to keep in mind that the ACI is one instrument that the European Union has prepared, but it's only one part of the overall trade policy that the Union can put in place vis-à-vis trading partners. So we think then that this instrument is very useful, but needs to be somehow tested and assessed. And there are a number of suggestions on how to do this that are reported in the study.
I will only highlight a few, given that the time is quite limited.
And we divided the potential areas of intervention to improve the use of the instrument into immediate actions, mid-term actions, and longer-term options. For the immediate term, it's very important to have, we believe, to hold readiness hearing by the International Trade Committee in order to perceive more directly from economic actors and from member states and from all the stakeholders the level of pressure that they are feeling. It's very important to have a system of to capture the signals that are arriving. Another very important element that we highlight for the short term is the possible creation of, based on this signal system, create an economic pressure dashboard. Collecting good evidence and good data is very, very important in order to provide effective policy response and make sure to calibrate the use of the instrument on the appropriate level of pressure.
In the in the mid-term, we think that it's also very important to develop a Member State solidarity playbook. We know that the pressure, and we have seen it in a number of situations in the cases examined, the pressure from other countries is on a specific Member State, but Member States should not definitely be left alone to cope with this type of pressure. It's overall European Union cohesion that is a very important deterrence for. In the longer term, probably the most important long-term issue is sustain and promote international norm building. We know that WTO needs to be reinforced and WTO needs to become again effective because this is the only way in the long run in which this pressure can be reduced.
But in general, the the creation at the level of the EU of a permanent analytical capacity on the extent of pressure and risk is an essential tool to be developed in the current scenario. Thank you very much.
Iuliu Winkler
Thank you very much for this presentation.
So if I understand correctly, that was it. I have no need to give the floor to your colleague. So then I have a speakers list and I turn to my colleagues, members of the International Trade Committee, coordinators or group speakers, and first of all to the EPP and Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez, you have the floor please.
Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez
Muchas gracias, presidente. Quiero empezar agradeciendo a los autores del estudio por el gran trabajo que han realizado. En junio este Parlamento aprobó el informe sobre el papel del comercio en la seguridad económica de la Unión Europea. El informe señala que nuestras vulnerabilidades frente a prácticas de coerción económica y dependencias externas son estructurales y no casos aislados. Y este estudio lo confirma.
Hemos sufrido más de 40 casos graves y certificados de presión económica desde el año 2018 hasta hoy.
Presiones que pueden venir de cualquier actor, de aliados, de rivales, de grandes potencias e incluso de países pequeños. Por eso, en nuestro informe pedimos la creación de un marcador y un informe anual sobre seguridad económica. Es fundamental saber con precisión de dónde vienen las amenazas y en qué sectores nos vemos más perjudicados. Pero el estudio va más allá. Reafirma también la necesidad de tener mayor coordinación institucional.
Porque estamos actualmente en la que tenemos notablemente insuficiente y no estamos siendo capaces de dar respuesta a tiempo. En este contexto quisiera preguntarle qué características mínimas debería tener este marcador de seguridad económica y qué indicadores debería medir para que sea un instrumento útil. Y desde el punto de vista de la coordinación institucional, también me gustaría saber si tienen identificados ejemplos de terceros países que pudieran replicarse en la Unión Europea. Muchas gracias, presidente.
Iuliu Winkler
Thank you very much, Juan Ignacio, and on behalf of the S&D group, colleague Jean-Marc Germain, you have the floor, please.
Jean-Marc Germain
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for Lucia Tajoli from ISPI for her presentation, for the quality of the analysis of the study together with her colleague Matteo Villa, and particularly I think that the case studies utilized are very useful. Maybe a couple of comments and two questions. First, the examples are extremely useful because they bring the discussion down to the concrete level: rare earths and supply chain dependency with China, pressure over EU digital regulation from the US, and Indonesian measures targeting Europe in sectors. They show what economic coercion means in practice for the companies, sectors, and Member States.
One thing is crystal clear: economic coercion against EU is no longer exceptional or marginal. It is deployed systematically with increasing frequency and persistence, particularly since 2024. In this regard, there is a political difficulty we need to confront, and it may be a pity that we are a couple of us to discuss this major issue. The reality is that the major powers are increasingly using economic leverage as just another mean of negotiations. We see clearly with the Trump tariff or with China's weaponization of critical dependency, notably rare earths.
This is the normalization and a legitimism economic coercion and foreign influence into our sovereign decisions. So EU needs to act now and respond to this new reality. This study is right in saying that EU is not starting from zero.
We have anti-coercion instrument, trade defense tool, the critical raw material act, FDI screening, export control and other security instruments. I also on behalf of Brando Benifei welcome the proposal for better early warning systems, stronger private reporting, coercion-sensitive stress tests, a solidarity playbook for member states and a clear overall coordination between all different instruments. Those are proposal of the report and I think they are very useful. But, and that's the main point of my intervention from S&D perspective, the key issue for us, all of us, is ultimately political. Do we have the political willingness to act?
An instrument is only credible if we are prepared to use it when necessary. We are still struggling not only to activate the ACI, but even to explicitly, as it happened to temporary text, refer it in our political statement or in our legal text.
This reveals a lack of political willingness to respond to the new geopolitical order where economic coercion has become commonplace. So my questions are twofold. First, to the authors of the text, do you think the main obstacle, as I just said, to making ACI a credible deterrence is really improving its legal operational framework or fundamentally to be able to answer to the question of political willingness, particularly among member states, to accept the costs and the risk of a collective response and to protect those who are going to be exposed? Second question, looking at your case studies, is about kind of expectations that we may have for the future. Where do you see the greatest risk that economic coercion will become normalized?
Where do you expect to see repeated tariff threats, export restrictions, or regulation pressure become normal part of internal negotiation? This seems to be a major risk that can cause the EU to fail to trigger a clear and collective response to such coercion. Thank you very much.
Iuliu Winkler
Thank you very much, and I turn now to the Greens, and I give the floor to Anna Cavazzini. Please, you have the floor.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you for the excellent study. I guess we all feel it that economic pressure is rising and we also have actually the states in mind or the governments in mind that you mentioned. But I think it's very good to have the data black on white that it's really happening, the increase is happening and the concentration also on those countries is happening. And of course, as you also said in your study, it is also partially caused by a crazy interdependence that makes us more vulnerable. So I think a lot of solutions that we need to act upon as European Union we also included in our own-initiative report that my colleague already mentioned, where the plenary basically voted unanimously almost.
And I think it's very important that we use this as a roadmap. But I want to concentrate on the ACI because of course you also mention it explicitly in your study. And I wonder if not, because we demand several times as Parliament and especially also as my group, that for example vis-à-vis the US government, let's at least start with the evidence phase or with the first, you know, activation phase or the gathering of evidence phase. I don't know how it's officially called. But even this never happened because also Member States didn't vote for it.
And I wonder if also this like mechanism that member states have to vote on it is not a crazy weakness built in the in the law and that we need to reform it and to have a more like objective criteria when it's actually triggered. Because like this it will never be triggered if politically it's never feasible because then we expect more economic pressure and then we don't use it because yeah, you get my point. So I wonder if you think the ACI should actually be reformed or if it's really working like this or how we can actually get it activated. Thank you.
Iuliu Winkler
Thank you very much and I have one more request for the floor and Markéta Gregorová you have the floor please.
Markéta Gregorová
Thank you chair and thank to the authors because this study I think addresses very important and embarrassing file in the European trade policy. Colleagues already mentioned it, the ACI, because it's a deterrent we built and never dared to use. So we are losing the credibility of the deterrence part.
This committee fought for the ACI three years ago. We strengthened it. We also put deadlines into it. But nearly three years later, its record is spotless. Never activated, never tested, never feared.
And in those same three years, we of course faced China's blockade of the Lithuanian trade for the crime of naming a diplomatic office, but also the export licenses on the rare earths were put, and our industry runs on them, and then extend them to the processing technology itself. And also we received several threats to various pieces of legislation that we have here in terms of passing them. So I think the instrument's credibility problem is not really legal, it's political. Council that treats every determination of coercion as a diplomatic crisis to be avoided rather than a fact to be stated. And thus I would like to ask maybe two questions.
In the case or cases you documented, did you find any evidence that the mere existence of ACI changed a third country's behavior, or has non-use already converted the deterrent into an invitation? And if you could change one institutional feature tomorrow, I know, specific question, but there is a possibility of a standing documentation office or automatic investigation triggers or the Council's decision rule, which single change would raise the cost of European deterrence? Thank you.
Iuliu Winkler
Thank you very much. Maybe before giving the floor to the authors, a few reflections on my side and maybe one or two questions. We are talking a lot about new trade policy instruments, and there is a lot of debate already on possible instruments. Commissioner, Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is talking about the so-called diversification instrument. And apparently that would mean that companies in high-risk sectors, for example chips and rare earths, would be required to source sensitive materials for at least three independent suppliers.
How do you see such a possible requirement? Is that feasible? How much burden would that create to our companies? And in the same line of speaking about new instruments, it's not only the diversification instrument, but there is also talk about an overcapacity instrument and a solidarity instrument. This is a welcome discussion.
It's partly a theoretical discussion, but also an interesting debate. But problem is that even if there would emerge some kind of consensus on those instruments, it probably takes a serious period of time until they could become legal instruments in our Parliament and through the legislative action. So, but we are in emergency now. So, do we need new instruments or do we need to use what we have finally? And maybe one third question, because I loved very much your sentence about international norm building on economic coercion, and you suggested a diplomatic dialogue, OECD and WTO related dialogue.
And we just had in this committee this morning the Deputy Secretary General of the OECD.
So I am curious if you could elaborate briefly on how exactly do you think that international law could be used as a pillar against coercion in a geopolitical global reality as we see it and I will not describe it. And so thank you colleagues for your questions and I turn back to the author of the study to Lucia. Ah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I have to turn now to the European Commission and I will give the floor to head of unit in DG Trade Alessandra Cotogno, please for five minutes and then we turn to the author of the study. Thank you.
Alessandra Koutoglidou
Yes, hello, good afternoon also on my side. And I would want to join others by welcoming very much this study and the opportunity to participate in the exchange that you're holding today.
The Commission has found that the study is very well researched, very diligent, and constitutes an important contribution to overall reflections on economic security and economic coercion, and in particular in relation to the anti-coercion instrument. We have found particularly useful the framing that you have constructed around the ACI, placing it also in the heart of the Union's economic security strategy and drawing relevant links, emphasizing that it is one of the tools that the Union has at its disposal to counter economic pressures and reiterating, recalling also the Commission's intention for coordinated use of economic security tools. The landscape of economic measures that are set out and analyzed in the study, they reflect very much the challenging geopolitical and trade context we're currently operating in.
And on our side, we also find very positive and constructive that the study puts a lot of emphasis in clarifying and specifying that coercion at the end of the day, the way that it is handled, the way that it is dealt by the European Union, it is a legal term, it has a definition under the regulation and there are certain legal requirements and conditions that would need to be fulfilled in order for the instrument to be triggered. In that respect, the complexity precisely of the current geopolitical and geoeconomic environment presents us with a challenge because there are a lot of measures that do restrict trade or investment, or they appear to restrict trade or investment, they threaten to restrict trade and investment, and not all of them can immediately be qualified as coercive. At least on the side of the Commission, we are cautious in our diagnosis in that respect, as quite a few of those measures may have different reasons: protection of industries, industrial policy considerations, efforts of certain countries to decouple from others, to develop own self-sufficiency in certain sectors. So the diagnosis is always important.
That said, the Commission is of course very vigilant in monitoring all those trade and investment restrictive measures that do not always qualify or amount to coercion. And what we would favor is rather a pragmatic approach whereby whenever we identify an issue in the form of a trade or investment restriction, we think what is the most effective way to address that restriction and to make it, if you want, go away. In certain cases, it may be legal action, it may be the ACI, but it may also be informal engagement or more formal diplomatic escalation. Nevertheless, our intention is not action just for the sake of action, but it's really an approach in the interest of the Union whereby we remedy those restrictive measures that are in place and we safeguard the Union's sovereign power to make and implement legitimate policy decisions.
In that respect, I want to mention also that the study finds that quite a few of the restrictive measures identified are in place for a long time, and maybe that is, apologies, maybe that is an indication that the pressure that potentially a third country wishes to impose on the European Union does not actually work because the legitimate regulatory measures that we intend to implement, they do not simply go away, and those restrictive measures either they stay and we absorb the economic cost or they are resolved at the end of the day. I will stop here, also mindful of the time that I have, and happy to engage further.
Iuliu Winkler
Thank you very much to the Commission, and I turn now to the author of the study going back online, Madame Lucia Taioli, you have the floor, please.
Lucia Taioli
Thank you very much.
If you allow me, I will try to address some of the points that have been raised and then I will give the floor to Matteo Villa to complete our answers. Thank you for all the comments and the remarks and thank you for the positive impression that you are giving us on the study. Let me address some of the points. One of the first comments referred to the need to have annual indicators and where exactly the pressure is coming from. This is done in the study.
In the study you can find data and graphs that show exactly the extent of the increasing pressure that have been put on the European Union year over year and we confirm that there's been a sharp increase from the year 2024.
The way in which we produce this graph is by giving a value, if you want, to the extent of pressure that have been put on the European Union following the different criteria behind the ACI measure. And so all the different cases are assessed through indices in a quantitative way, if you want, showing precisely what you were asking for, the year-by-year level of pressure, which, as I said, has been increasing, especially after the year 2004, with a sharp increase. Many points were related to whether the use of this instrument, or the lack of use so far, is political, legal, or there are other features. Certainly, all types of measures that can be taken as a counter-effect of the pressure are costly. So it's quite obvious that other ways to solve controversies should come first, because the pressure that some countries' restriction on exports, restrictions on imports, or other types of pressures that countries have put on European firms are costly, but also the countermeasures and the reactions can be extremely costly.
So I think that the fact that the use of the instrument has not been immediate reflects this idea. It's not so much the risk of a political escalation, which exists, of course, but it's also the fact that some of the countermeasures are per se costly. So this is why we think it's important to present and create a set of potential measures, making very clear to all Member States and all parties involved which is the effect and the cost of seeing those countermeasures being applied.
It's also I think important though to say that even if in terms of pressure the deterrence effect of the ACI doesn't seem to be very strong given the increase of the pressure, it is also important to say that in none of the cases examined the European Union has given in to the requests that started this pressure. There's been no change in the digital act legislation or there's been no change in the representations in Lithuania or other things. So in general we must say that even if pressure has been exerted indeed there was no giving in in the pressure. So I think that certainly there is a political issue and the political issue is very much related to many of the discussions that we see on the many other decisions that can be made, that is who's bearing the cost and we know that the cost might not be evenly spread across sectors and across member states and this clearly creates a political issue.
But before getting to that, I think it's very, very important, as someone was mentioning, to define thresholds that would trigger the use of instrument. I think that examining the existing cases can define given thresholds in which a not full-fledged use of the bazooka would come, but a number of situations in which the process starts, an investigation on what is happening starts. So I think without getting all the way to the use of the instrument, it's very important to set thresholds that would at least start the process to some extent automatically. And this is one of the usefulness we believe of the cases that we've been examining, because in all cases we really try to consider what is the level of economic damage created, who's bearing the cost, etc. And this is why I was stressing the relevance of keeping a very close ties with firms and market operators that might start to feel the pressure very early.
This is why I think that this is very important. Before it becomes a political issue, while it's still to some extent more an economic issue, it might be easier to tackle. One more point, and then I'll leave the floor to Matteo Villa: diversification and other instruments. They are also costly. Diversification is costly.
We have seen a lot of diversification done directly by firms. There are many studies that show that as a reaction to the increasing uncertainty, for example, many firms started to diversify supply chains. So they have reacted based, if you want, on economic stimuli even before any policy on this was put forward. But again, also this is costly. To keep an active network and set of suppliers is much more costly than relying on a few suppliers, as we know.
So this is something that definitely needs to be addressed.
All the tools that need to be deployed are not costless, and costs and effects need to be shared at the European Union level. Now, about international law, I believe that the European Union has always been one of the actors in the world scenario most forcefully trying to maintain the rules of the game as they are defined by international institutions and international agreements. And I think that it's very important that this continues to be the case. The WTO has become really silent on many issues, but I think that in some areas there has been progress, some more technical areas than political ones, of course. To some extent, the situation that we are facing is inevitable because the problem of political pressures and coercion goes well beyond the typical economic issues that are the core of the WTO and other similar institutions' concerns.
But definitely, I think it's very important to expand what is legal or illegal according to the WTO rules.
In fact, the ACI instrument acts when something illegal according to international law occurs. So I think that it's very important even simply to define, to have written down, black on white, what is considered to be legal or illegal. And in this respect, I think that international law could be useful. But I'll stop here and I will let also Matteo Villa complement what I have been saying. I'm sorry if I did not address all the questions.
Iuliu Winkler
Yes, thank you very much. And yes, Matteo Villa is online also. Maybe in five minutes, Mr. Villa, if it's possible to formulate your remarks. Thank you very much.
Matteo Villa
Absolutely, thank you so much, and even less, I hope. I'm just seconding what Professor Taioli said and adding a bit of context. I was thinking that many of your questions were related to political pressure, let's say so, and political action. So let me first of all stress that what we were required to do in the study was actually to disregard this part.
So we stopped just short of the political decision, which of course, you as a political body, you want to see that. So let me first address this elephant in the room, because I think I'm speaking on behalf of all the authors of the study, we all feel that political, you know, the decision to act on the instruments is political. And if you think about it, even the way in which this instrument was born was, you know, felt the political pressure of the time. Because you know, in 2022, when we go back to the negotiations, I think we all remember that the Commission's proposals were effectively even stronger than what the European Parliament members were in a way proposing today, you know, at least making the evidentiary phase part of the ACI automatic. So starting the process of the evidentiary phase just to signal something to the third party that we do not agree, at least in principle, and we think that the action might be coercive.
Well, this should have been automatic in the initial proposal. But if you, you know, if you go back to the initial proposal by the Commission, they would push even further because there would be, you know, some ways to impose initial sanctions to this country, to sanction this country even before a vote in, of course, extreme cases. So this was changed during the negotiations and especially the evidentiary phase has a huge impact politically.
So going back to the study, probably our argument is not, you know, the ACI needs to be used. It needs to be credible. And in order to be credible, any deterrent instrument needs to have clear signaling. So it's not action, the activation is not action in terms of sanctioning, but it's, you know, the start of a process that can of course close without any sanctions, but it can help as a signal if of course the political willingness is there. And so I guess that some of our proposals of working around the margins of what the ACI is today, meaning again, the evidence phase is not, I mean, requires a vote by the Member States in terms of, you know, making systematic economic pressure dashboards, mainstreaming the work on economic coercion within current instruments that we do have in trade, industrial policy, investment and so on, go to in this way of, you know, making this kind of signaling more visible to the outside and a bit more credible.
Then of course the credibility depends on the political actors. So that's the, the stop.
Let me just stress a small point here, something that we didn't discuss before, but it's important. When threats arise, they usually are quite short-lived, but within six months they either turn into real economic pressure by these third actors or they simply cease to exist. So timing is of the essence, and so for us the crucial part is also, you know, good communication from those actors that are feeling the pressure first. Moving on, and very, very brief because Lucia has already really addressed most of the of your questions, I would say that complementing this comment, the Commission's comment also goes in the way of saying, you know, we do need maybe, you know, to be less careful in the evidentiary phase because the Commission has stressed that in most cases, you know, most things would not be classified as coercion per se.
So it is to be welcomed, this kind of approach, very prudent, very cautious approach is to be welcomed. It would be probably more welcomed within a context in which the evidentiary phase can start automatically or the ACI is mainstreamed within other instruments as I mentioned before, because in this case, in the current case, it seems almost like a vicious circle in which the Commission is cautious, but anyway, the evidentiary phase cannot start due to the political dynamics between member states. Finally, does pressure work? It's a great question and we find it's not in the study because of course we need to evaluate it over time and the most important episodes of coercion have been quite recent or still ongoing. But it's true that we see that most of EU actions or even member states' actions do not change after coercion starts.
I would say, I would argue that this doesn't change much in terms of whether the instrument is relevant or not per se, because of course adding something, adding another tool to your own toolbox can be a way maybe to hope, hopefully make these threats cease before they turn into action. And so finally, to respond to the question on do we have evidence that the mere existence of the ACI has changed any behaviors?
I can say so far none whatsoever. We don't know yet. We cannot of course attribute the causality to ACI itself. But yeah, it's still too early, but it's also true that the ACI has never been not even just activated, but not even mentioned when it could have been the case. And I'm not just referring to the US, but also to China, of course, the two big elephants in the room that have been piling up pressure on the European Union over the past few years.
Thank you so much.
Iuliu Winkler
Thank you very much to the authors, Mr. Villar, Madame Taioli. Thank you for these presentations. Thanks to the colleagues for the interventions, to the Commission for the intervention. And this concludes our business for today. We continue or resume tomorrow morning at nine.
Thank you to the interpreters. Everybody have a nice afternoon and evening. Thank you.
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