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European policymakers are increasingly focused on strengthening the EU’s strategic autonomy, reducing strategic dependencies and building greater resilience across critical sectors. This drive is rooted in legitimate concerns about ensuring access to essential goods, increasing the diversity of supply chains and enhancing the EU’s ability to respond to geopolitical and economic challenges. As the EU seeks to address these challenges, its core objective should be to leverage its extensive partnerships and use smart incentives to support the bloc’s long-term competitiveness and security.

Lawmakers are actively considering ways that ‘Made in Europe’ criteria could support these objectives in virtually any process requiring clearance, approval or an auction. Global examples of domestic preference and non-price criteria demonstrate two things. First, if they are designed poorly, they could reduce competitiveness, simplification and resilience. However, they also demonstrate that if they are designed well, they can maximise the value of allies’ economic participation and improve the functioning of the processes they are applied to.

The US’s various ‘Buy America’ programmes provide a useful case study for assessing the risks of different ‘Made in Europe’ regimes. While US procurement and funding programmes with ‘Buy America’ provisions are generally open to foreign-headquartered participants (and actively encourage their participation), they also bring certain categories of risk that should be considered before bringing them to the EU.

If ‘Made in Europe’ effectively excludes firms headquartered in the US and other allied nations, including EU-based subsidiaries of US-headquartered firms, the EU risks introducing more complexity into European public procurement markets and funding programmes. This would ultimately diminish competition and the quality of products and services, while increasing costs and elevating trade tensions that may decreasing the market access of EU-headquartered companies abroad. At a time when the EU is facing urgent competitiveness challenges, policymakers should avoid pursing reactive security and resilience policies that would undermine the EU’s competitiveness goals.

However, if thoughtfully implemented, certain ‘Made in Europe’ regimes could leverage the EU’s Single Market and international partnerships to improve the EU’s competitiveness and resilience.

The Medical Devices and In Vitro Diagnostics Regulations (MDR/IVDR) have created unworkable complexity for the medical devices industry, with dire consequences for European patients. To address these challenges, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) or political groups can help address the unintended consequences of the current framework by tabling a Parliamentary Question that urges the European Commission to introduce targeted relief measures in parallel to a comprehensive revision of the MDR and IVDR. This would support the European Commission to implement short-term relief measures, in addition to the MDR/IVDR revision, that bolster efficiency, mitigate administrative bottlenecks and increase predictability in the regulatory processes. This would have an immediate impact on patient access and boost Europe’s innovation.

The proposed European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) within the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) package raises serious concerns about legal certainty, market openness and the proportionality of restrictions. Specifically, the introduction of EU preference in EU funding instruments as currently proposed would negatively impact long-standing cooperation between international companies from allied countries and undermine the EU’s ability to leverage the expertise and resourcing of US companies that have a long-standing commitment to and investment in the EU. The ECF in its design should seize the opportunity to strengthen the EU’s competitiveness by ensuring predictable eligibility criteria, increasing transparency and stakeholder involvement, and leveraging industrial partnerships.

See more in AmCham EU's submission to the Call for Feedback on the ECF below.