The European Commission’s trade and economic-security chief, Maroš Šefčovič, has welcomed what he described as “progress on Nexperia, key to restoring a semiconductor supply chain”, signalling the EU’s intensified focus on future-proofing internal chip flows and trade openness. At the same time, he stressed that “our work continues towards lasting stability without export control barriers”, underlining the bloc’s ambition to keep supply-chain friction low while strengthening domestic resilience.

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The background to this is that the Netherlands government intervened in Dutch-based chipmaker Nexperia, a China-owned company, citing national-security concerns. In response, Beijing restricted exports of certain products from the company’s China operations, raising alarms among European auto makers and industrial groups about supply interruption risks.