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#Tech, Media & Telecom

​​Airbus of… ​Lessons for European Industrial Collaboration

  • September 8, 2026
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Read the Publication "Airbus of… ​Lessons for European Industrial Collaboration"

Can Europe Create Another Airbus?

Calls for an “Airbus of…” have become a recurring feature of European industrial policy debates. From chips and cloud to artificial intelligence, batteries and satellites, the underlying concern is the same: can Europe pool its fragmented industrial and financial capacities to compete with dominant US and Asian firms?

A new CERRE paper by Patricia Nouveau argues that Airbus offers important lessons – but not a blueprint that Europe can simply replicate. To test how far the Airbus model can travel, the paper compares it with other major European industrial projects, including Unidata in computing, Gaia-X in cloud and data infrastructure, and Galileo in satellite navigation, with IRIS² considered as a more recent extension of the European space case.
What makes European industrial collaboration work?

The comparison identifies four factors that strongly influence whether cross-border industrial cooperation succeeds:

  • The attractiveness of alternatives: European cooperation is harder to sustain when governments or firms have credible national, transatlantic or other extra-European options.
  • Complementarity between partners: collaboration works more easily when participants contribute different capabilities. It becomes more difficult when they compete for the same technologies, contracts or customers.
  • The ability of governments to shape demand: public authorities have greater leverage in sectors where procurement can create early demand and support scale. Consumer and business markets are much harder to influence.
  • A credible sense of fair return: governments and firms need to believe that their contributions are matched by a reasonable share of the financial, industrial and technological benefits.

The broader lesson is that strategic autonomy and commercial competitiveness do not automatically reinforce one another. Building successful European industrial champions may require greater financial coordination, market-creating procurement and stronger common institutions, but also careful attention to how costs, capabilities and benefits are distributed across Member States.

The paper will be presented at CERRE’s EU Competitiveness Summit on 30 September in Brussels.

Document(s)
Read the Publication "Airbus of… ​Lessons for European Industrial Collaboration"
Airbus of… ​Lessons for European Industrial CollaborationLire plus de publications sur Calaméo
Author(s)
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Patricia Nouveau
Patricia Nouveau
Lecturer-Researcher, Research Analyst
UCLouvain

Patricia Nouveau is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) and the University of Strasbourg (Unistra, France), where she teaches global and European economic governance, European Union industrial and digital policy, and business lobbying at the EU level.

She is also a researcher affiliated with the Centre d’Études des Relations Internationales (CEFIR) at the University of Liège (Belgium). Her research examines the European Union’s pursuit of digital sovereignty and the industrial and regulatory policies it has developed to advance this objective. She focuses particularly on the interdependence of global digital value chains and the technological rivalry between the United States and China, considering its implications for the European Union. She also compares the industrial and digital strategies of these three major powers within an increasingly competitive geopolitical environment.

Patricia Nouveau is co-author, with Jean-Christophe Defraigne, of the 2013, 2017, and 2022 editions of Introduction à l’économie européenne (De Boeck). She has also contributed to the edited volumes EU Industrial Policy in the Multipolar Economy (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies Series, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022; eds. Jan Wouters, Eduardo Traversa and Dimitri Zurstrassen) and The Future of Transatlantic Relations in a Geoeconomic World (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming, January 2027). Her other publications include Dépendance technologique et politiques industrielles européennes : le dilemme entre souveraineté propriétaire, territoriale et réglementaire (French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, 2025) and European Union’s Digital Governance versus United States’ Digital Dominance (Revue de la Faculté de droit de l’Université de Liège, Larcier, 2020/2).

Prior to pursuing an academic career, she worked as a consultant in EU public affairs, advising businesses, governments, and European institutions on trade, transport, and regional policy

Patricia Nouveau is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) and the University of Strasbourg (Unistra, France), where she teaches global and European economic governance, European Union industrial and digital policy, and business lobbying at the EU level.

She is also a researcher affiliated with the Centre d’Études des Relations Internationales (CEFIR) at the University of Liège (Belgium). Her research examines the European Union’s pursuit of digital sovereignty and the industrial and regulatory policies it has developed to advance this objective. She focuses particularly on the interdependence of global digital value chains and the technological rivalry between the United States and China, considering its implications for the European Union. She also compares the industrial and digital strategies of these three major powers within an increasingly competitive geopolitical environment.

Patricia Nouveau is co-author, with Jean-Christophe Defraigne, of the 2013, 2017, and 2022 editions of Introduction à l’économie européenne (De Boeck). She has also contributed to the edited volumes EU Industrial Policy in the Multipolar Economy (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies Series, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022; eds. Jan Wouters, Eduardo Traversa and Dimitri Zurstrassen) and The Future of Transatlantic Relations in a Geoeconomic World (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming, January 2027). Her other publications include Dépendance technologique et politiques industrielles européennes : le dilemme entre souveraineté propriétaire, territoriale et réglementaire (French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, 2025) and European Union’s Digital Governance versus United States’ Digital Dominance (Revue de la Faculté de droit de l’Université de Liège, Larcier, 2020/2).

Prior to pursuing an academic career, she worked as a consultant in EU public affairs, advising businesses, governments, and European institutions on trade, transport, and regional policy

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