Brussels proposes sanctions for companies in countries that prevent EU companies from accessing public contracts

The debate taking place in the European Union and, in particular in the European Commission, on the occasion of the visit of the Chinese president, takes on particular importance, both because of the visit of the Chinese head of state, and because of the developments towards which this discussion will lead. It has not become an urgent topic just now, that of guaranteeing reciprocity and equality of treatment to European companies when they operate outside the Union; the current situation, in fact, presents several obstacles in many countries to which companies operating in Europe belong freely and which hinder European companies with customs barriers, especially in the context of public procurement. Nations like China, India, Turkey and Indonesia, just to name a few of the most important, actually prevent access to European companies from the public procurement market, while the same countries compete freely for the same market in Europe; the presence of China, then, takes on preponderant values ​​and obliges considerations that go beyond economic considerations to invest in the areas of security and data protection. If the head of the White House has long raised this problem, to try to impose a protectionist and anti-globalization vision without controls, with ways that are certainly not diplomatic, one can disagree on its modalities, but one cannot fail to recognize that this difficulty actually exists. We find ourselves in an unfavorable global economic situation and where Europe suffers from the scarce availability of investments, which compress the ability to create jobs and redistribute wealth. The role of China, which has large financial resources, has assumed a strategic importance that has entailed the danger of an entry into the European economies which entails counterparts that may be too high in the economic sector, but also in politics. Behind the lack of reciprocal treatment of companies there is a sort of protectionism on the contrary, which creates alarm in the social and political sectors of the Union. For the European Commission this danger is real and the first step it wants to take is to create mechanisms capable of applying restrictions for companies in countries that hinder the entry of European companies into public procurement markets. To do this we need the adhesion of the governments of the member countries, which appears to be anything but defined. Germany, Spain, although heavily hit by this phenomenon and the Nordic countries are opposed to this decision because they identify a protectionist will, contrary to the policy of opening to the market that must distinguish Brussels. Now the distinction between politics and economics is not always possible, but in this case what seems important is the achievement of a common goal that can go beyond the short-term benefits of a possible investment. If on the one hand the reciprocity of treatment of companies from different countries in the same markets, it should appear as a matter of economic justice, because it ensures a stabilization of free competition, eliminating the factors of imbalance, on the other hand the importance of a decision common that protects the political aspects of ensuring free competition, should have a value even higher than the opportunity of economic gain as a single and isolated. Too many times Brussels' inaction has been complained: in this case, where the Commission seems to have taken the initiative, Brussels deserves more support, also in recognition of the unity of political action on behalf of the Union. The attitudes of those who say they are against protectionism reveal, instead, a clear political protectionism particularly akin to that sovereignism, to which those governments say they are against. The growth of the importance of Europe must not only refer to its potential as a market, but also to its authority as a political interlocutor precisely to allow a dialectic that facilitates work for its businesses in order to create wealth for its citizens. Placing conditions on access to public procurement can be the first step to combat even those imbalances, based on the failure to take into account labor rights and too low wages, which facilitate the private industry of emerging countries and which have created the conditions for current concentration of manufacturing.