With the return of war to Europe, shortages and with the explosion of raw material stocks, the concept of strategic autonomy is on everyone’s lips. For several decades now, globalization has internationalized the production of companies and many of them are leaving their homeland every year at the expense of impressive logistical efforts, for the benefit of significant savings.

However, the risk factor, which is becoming increasingly crucial in the current geopolitical instability, challenges the benefits of relocation.

Meanwhile, deindustrialized states are less able to manage interdependencies that can overcome their dependencies, and they fear a public opinion that is worried about this observation.

If Eastern Europe could well be the scene of a massive European relocation, it is also because subcontracting to Asia no longer offers the same advantages as before. In addition to the cultural and geographical remoteness, from which logistical difficulties arise, there is a strong variation in the euro-dollar exchange rate and a rise in labor costs. In China, for instance, manufacturing wages are now equivalent to those in Portugal. 

On the contrary, although labor costs remain relatively high in Eastern Europe, the region enjoys a strong industrial culture sometimes inherited from the Soviet Union, European funds devoted to the modernization of infrastructures, increasingly well-trained technical staff, and allows the promotion of the “Made in Europe”, a quality guarantee in the collective psyche. Relocation to the subcontinent also has the huge advantage of drastically reducing the uncertainty linked to transport, reducing command circuits and, most importantly, ensuring an apparent European industrial independence, as demanded by the populations.

Although no country in the 21st century can free itself from foreign dependencies, it is now important for states to cover themselves in the midst of the frequent geopolitical upheavals that affect the world. China has understood this well, as shown by the “Made in China 2025” plan, launched in 2015, which advocates technological and industrial self-sufficiency.

Globalization is not in a phase of regression but of profound change, tending towards a regionalization of economies. Eastern Europe now seems to offer the EU the prospect of seeing its industry come back. It remains to be seen whether this relocation will be marginal or total.