European Economic Security in a World of Interdependence

The EU has recently been placing greater weight on economic security as a distinct policy objective. How does this differ from past attempts to increase resilience and prevent crises? There is also a widespread view that increasing economic security should take the form of “de-risking” that preserves trade integrations as much as possible. But how do we determine exactly what needs de-risking? This lecture seeks to answer these questions and use the answers to the diagnose EU’s policy agenda on economic security. What has been achieved, where are the blind spots, and how can the chances of unintended consequences be minimised? About the Speaker: Jeromin Zettelmeyer has been Director of Bruegel since September 2022. Born in Madrid in 1964, Jeromin was previously a Deputy Director of the Strategy and Policy Review Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prior to that, he was Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow (2019) and Senior Fellow (2016-19) at the Peterson Institute for International Economics; Director-General for Economic Policy at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2014-16); Director of Research and Deputy Chief Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2008-2014); and an IMF staff member, where he worked in the Research, Western Hemisphere, and European II Departments (1994-2008).