Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 3 June 2026 the European Commission adopted a legislative proposal to amend and substantially expand the EU Chips Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/1781), as part of the European Technological Sovereignty Package. The proposal raises the mobilisation target from €43bn to €120bn, introduces new demand-side "Demand Accelerators" to aggregate public procurement, expands "Grand Challenges" to cover AI-optimised chips, caps permitting at 12 months, and widens the Strategic Partnerships on Semiconductors framework. As a Commission legislative proposal it now enters co-decision (European Parliament + Council) before becoming law; the 2023 regulation remains in force during this process.

The European Commission (DG COMP) approved on 20 May 2026 two German State aid measures under the European Chips Act first-pillar 'first-of-a-kind' framework and Article 107(3)(c) TFEU, totalling €288 million. A €222 million grant supports Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH's HNA@SCALE project in Oberkochen (Baden-Württemberg) to industrialise the next generation of High-NA EUV optical columns — the lithography-optic sub-systems integrated by ASML into its High-NA EUV scanners and critical to 2nm-and-below node manufacturing globally. A separate €66 million grant supports Zadient Materials Europe GmbH's SiC-Pro project in Bitterfeld (Saxony-Anhalt) to construct a first-of-a-kind ultra-pure silicon carbide (SiC) source-material manufacturing facility, addressing upstream SiC supply-chain dependence on China (which produces ~80% of global SiC). Both facilities carry cross-border spillover commitments under Chips Act pillar 1.

On 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU presidency, the European Parliament, and the European Commission reached provisional political (trilogue) agreement on the revision of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union, concluding interinstitutional negotiations on the Commission's proposal of 24 January 2024. The revised regime upgrades the 2019 cooperation-mechanism-only framework into a hybrid harmonised/mandatory regime: all 27 Member States must establish FDI screening mechanisms (replacing the current patchwork in which some Member States have no mechanism at all); mandatory minimum sectoral scope is set EU-wide and covers dual-use items, military equipment, hyper-critical technologies (general-purpose AI with space/defence relevance, quantum technologies, semiconductors), critical raw materials, critical entities in energy/transport/digital infrastructure, electoral infrastructure, and certain financial-system entities; foreign investments routed through EU subsidiaries fall within the perimeter; a shared database prevents Member-State arbitrage; and an optional single electronic-filing portal becomes available if requested by at least nine Member States. Screening decisions remain the exclusive responsibility of the Member State in which the investment is made. Once the Regulation enters into force (after Council and Parliament formal adoption and OJ publication, both pending as of the political-agreement date), the new rules will apply after an 18-month transition period — implementation expected toward the end of 2027.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2003, adopted by the European Commission on 8 September 2025, published in the Official Journal on 14 November 2025 and entering into force on 15 November 2025, amends Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2021/821 to implement the 2024 multilateral decisions of the Wassenaar Arrangement, MTCR, Australia Group, and NSG. The most extensive EU semiconductor-equipment additions since the 2021 framework took effect: ALD, epitaxial deposition, lithography, EUV pellicles/masks/reticles, SEM, and etching equipment, plus tighter controls on quantum computers, advanced FPGAs/ICs for AI training, additive-manufacturing, and cryogenic/superconducting components. The regulation is the EU-side update layer of the Western dual-use export control architecture, structurally aligned with the US BIS advanced- computing/SME packages and the Netherlands DUV-licensing regime.

The Chips Joint Undertaking, via Horizon Europe grant agreement 101213727 signed 19 June 2025, is co-funding "PIXEurope" (Advanced Photonic Integrated Circuits Pilot Line for Europe), the fifth EU Chips Act pilot line. Fundació Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO, Spain), the project coordinator, receives EUR 10,112,253.51 in net EU contribution — the coordinator's own tranche of the wider 19-entity, multi-country consortium's EUR 176.05m total project cost (EUR 88.03m in EU/Chips JU contribution), running 1 June 2025 to 31 May 2030. This is a distinct beneficiary filing alongside the parallel TNO (Netherlands) tranche of the same grant agreement, which builds a 6-inch indium-phosphide pilot manufacturing line at High Tech Campus Eindhoven.

The Chips Joint Undertaking, via Horizon Europe grant agreement 101213727 signed 19 June 2025, is co-funding "PIXEurope" (Advanced Photonic Integrated Circuits Pilot Line for Europe), the fifth EU Chips Act pilot line, coordinated by Fundació Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO, Spain) with a 19-entity, multi-country consortium. Total project cost is EUR 176.05m against EUR 88.03m in EU/Chips JU contribution, running 1 June 2025 to 31 May 2030. TNO (Netherlands) is a lead participant, receiving EUR 13.47m in net EU contribution (EUR 26.94m total eligible cost) to build a 6-inch indium-phosphide photonic-chip pilot manufacturing line at High Tech Campus Eindhoven — part of a wider EUR 193m Dutch national co-investment (Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Chips JU, TNO, TU Eindhoven, University of Twente) targeting technological independence in photonic chips for telecom/6G, AI, quantum, defence and medical-diagnostics applications. Global Trade Alert logs a EUR 10.1m figure for the TNO tranche as a "red" state-act intervention (financial grant) on competitive-distortion grounds; this filing anchors on the CORDIS-published grant-agreement figures as the authoritative primary-source numbers.

Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/63 of 15 January 2025, published in the Official Journal on 16 January 2025 (CELEX 32025H0063), is the first EU-level instrument operationalising outbound-investment screening. It is a legally non-binding act that asks Member States to designate a Single Contact Point and competent national authorities by 15 March 2025 and to review outbound transactions by EU investors into third countries in three strategic sectors — advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies — covering acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, greenfield investments, asset/IP transfers, and venture-capital instruments completed since 1 January 2021. Member States must submit an interim update by 15 July 2025 and a comprehensive report on review outcomes and identified risks by 30 June 2026, feeding into the EU's broader Economic Security Strategy and the binding outbound-investment legislative instrument the Commission has signalled for 2026-2027.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1781, published in the Official Journal on 18 September 2023 and in force from 8 October 2023, establishes the EU Chips Act: a three-pillar framework targeting 20% of global semiconductor production by 2030 (up from approximately 9% in 2022) by mobilising EUR 43bn in public and private investment. Pillar 1 (Chips for Europe Initiative, EUR 3.3bn committed from EU budget) funds R&D, pilot production lines, and design infrastructure. Pillar 2 creates a fast-track permitting regime for "Integrated Production Facilities" (IPFs) and "Open EU Foundries" (OEFs) that qualify as being in the Union's interest. Pillar 3 establishes a supply-chain monitoring mechanism and grants the Commission power to mandate priority orders from designated facilities during a declared semiconductor crisis.