Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll talk about de-risking Europe's global critical supply chains,

one of the 15 risks identified and analysed by the EPRS in the Future Shocks 2030 report.

Want to know more? Stay with us.

Supply chains are entangled webs of companies, resources, activities and technologies involved

in the production and delivery of goods. Today's global economy relies on such chains and the

EU even more than the US and China.

Now, to understand how wide and complex these chains are,

just consider that a global car manufacturer can have more than 18,000 suppliers involved in its production process.

And disruptions at one point in the chain, due to natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks or cyber attacks can have huge global repercussions, as we saw during COVID-19 or in the more recent context of Russia's war on Ukraine.

So the hardening geopolitical environment, the rise of protectionism and the pandemic triggered a debate on decoupling vulnerable supply chains in order to increase their resilience and reduce

dependencies on foreign suppliers such as China, which currently supplies the EU with all

the heavy rare earth elements it needs to produce electric motors or wind turbines.

Key technologies for the EU's green transition.

So while more strategic autonomy in this field is necessary,

the EU knows that full decoupling from China is neither possible nor desirable.

So the tone of the debate has shifted towards derisking.

Now, what does it actually mean?

De-risking is a more nuanced way of ensuring Europe's resilience and strategic autonomy when it comes to supply chains.

It can be achieved by increasing domestic production, ensuring greater autonomy in critical raw materials

through trade tools and global cooperation.

The European Parliament has long been proposing a holistic way to address supply chain risks

...