When the smallest attempt to prevent Nexperia's chip manufacturing from being whisked away to China results in the entire European car industry almost grinding to a halt, a measured text isn't enough to reverse the bloc’s gradual slide toward becoming a theater for great-power competition.

In general, the Communication makes a lot of promises, for instance about investment screening, dual-use export controls, or technology leakage and industrial espionage. It remains to be seen how many of those commitments will materialize in upcoming legislation.

Yes, the renewed impetus to gather more intelligence on European supply chain's vulnerability is very welcome. However, this was already a key objective in the EU's 2023 strategy. Here's to hoping the measures contained in the new Communication will know a happier fate.

Overall: ambitious effort navigating real constraints. The Centre could be a game-changer if it successfully builds capabilities across all MS. But democratic resilience requires looking beyond information warfare to the full authoritarian playbook.

I get the geopolitical sensitivities around platforms right now. But without being more explicit about the reversal in content moderation, we risk people not grasping the severity of the threat to Europe's information space.

But three gaps stand out:

1. Focus on info manipulation comes at expense of other authoritarian tools (corruption, economic coercion, etc.),

2. Platform obstruction in DSA enforcement needs clearer acknowledgment,

3. Global South democracy support deserves more than a passing mention.

More like whatever they're smoking 😅