Please join the Center for Strategic and International Studies for an in-person and live-streamed event on economic security with Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis and Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager of the European Commission. Mr. Dombrovskis covers the European Union’s economic and trade portfolio and Ms. Vestager the digital portfolio, serving at the same time as competition Commissioner. Together, they lead the European Union’s economic security agenda, along its three pillars of “promote,” including efforts to build more secure and resilient supply chains, “protect,” including export controls, investment screening, and research security, and “partner,” including trade agreements or cooperation formats such as the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council.
On January 24, the European Union announces its reinvigorated approach to economic security, following the June 2023 release of the EU Economic Security Strategy. It will present a revision of the inward investment screening system, options for a more coordinated European approach towards export controls, options for enhanced R&I in dual-use technologies, a set of measures to improve research security across the European Union, and first steps into exploring whether outbound investment measures could complement the European Union’s existing toolkit.
Further articulation of the EU economic security agenda comes at a time when Washington is also beginning to build a more robust economic security toolkit. This approach includes domestic investment initiatives such as the CHIPS and Science Act and strategic trade restrictions such as export controls on advanced AI chips. Concurrent expansions of economic security agendas make transatlantic cooperation even more critical.
The CSIS Program on Europe, Russia, and Eurasia, together with the Project on Trade and Technology, welcomes the Vice Presidents for a fireside discussion on the transatlantic economic security agenda and how transatlantic cooperation can advance the European Commission’s goal to “protect, promote, and partner” through this new agenda.
This event will take place at CSIS HQ, located at 1616 Rhode Island Avenue NW. It will also be livestreamed.
CSIS anticipates high attendance for this event. Upon arrival, please check in at the registration table located in the CSIS lobby.
Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager
Margrethe Vestager is the Executive Vice President of the European Commission. She is in charge of enforcing the European Union’s rules designed to keep the markets fair. She also sets the strategic direction of a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, aimed to make sure that the digital technology supports our society’s goals and is behind the EU’s recent artificial intelligence regulation. She steered the work on upgrading liability and safety rules for digital platforms, with the new Digital Services Act and the work on designing regulation to maintain gatekeeper platforms contestable with the new Digital Markets Act.
Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis
Valdis Dombrovskis is Executive Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for an Economy that Works for People, also in charge of Trade (since October 2020). Before this, he was Vice-President responsible for the euro, social dialogue, financial services and the Capital Markets Union. He was Latvia’s longest-serving head of government with three terms as prime minister. He previously worked as chief economist at the Bank of Latvia. He began his career as research assistant at Mainz University, at the Institute of Solid-State Physics in Latvia and the University of Maryland. Valdis Dombrovskis was born on 5 August 1971 in Riga, and holds degrees in both physics and economics.
This event is made possible through general support to CSIS.