Reinforcing Europe’s core: The EU’s new industrial policy and the case of semiconductors

Abstract

The idea that European capitalism is divided between an export-led northern ‘core’ and a debt-led southern ‘periphery’ became a dominant theme in the political economy literature in the wake of the Eurozone crisis. Over the past decade, European elites have embraced a range of industrial policy instruments that seek to shore up the position of European industry in high-tech sectors. To what extent does this new EU industrial policy disrupt or reinforce long-standing core-periphery relations in Europe? In this paper, we focus on two flagship industrial policy instruments which seek to channel subsidies to the EU’s semiconductor sector. Advancing new quantitative data on state aid and private investment associated with these instruments, we show that the EU’s subsidy regime for semiconductors has reinforced long-standing core-periphery relations in Europe but in a new form and under a new set of international conditions.