Whether it’s on competitiveness, defence or broader geopolitics, the European Commission and some influential member countries have doubled down on a Two-Speed Europe, dans la lettre and in spirit. And with EU leaders validating the concept during their Thursday retreat (12 February), it appears to be the start of a structural change.
The past weeks have seen the revival of an old idea: that those willing should move ahead, and the rest follow when ready. French President Emmanuel Macron sketched the blueprint at Paris’ Sorbonne University in 2017. It took until 2026 for Germany, the EU’s largest economy, to sign on.
Germany’s rupture
Berlin’s shift is concrete. In early February, the finance ministers of the six largest economies – Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands – formed a “E6” grouping. Convened by Germany’s Lars Klingbeil and France’s Roland Lescure, the group wants to act as “drivers” on four priorities: a faster capital markets and savings union to ease financing for firms, a stronger euro internationally, tighter coordination of defence investment with joint procurement and common weapons systems embedded in the next EU budget, and coordinated purchasing, reserves and trade partnerships to secure critical raw materials.
The logic is industrial and geopolitical. China’s export controls on gallium, germanium and rare earths have rattled supply chains. Under the Commission’s RESourceEU plan, Reuters reports that France, Germany and Italy are coordinating tightly on financing stockpiles, sourcing and storage, respectively. Ten member states are involved in working groups assessing volumes, logistics and costs.
Berlin is also recalibrating alliances. On 23 January, Friedrich Merz met Giorgia Meloni in Rome. Twenty-one ministers signed some ten agreements, including on defence cooperation. The German Rheinmetall and Italy’s Leonardo already share a tank venture. Germany and Italy drafted a joint paper for the European leaders’ retreat on Thursday (12 February), styling themselves the bloc’s “two main industrial nations” and urging faster progress on exports, including the long-delayed Mercosur deal.
The Commission agrees
The Commission is matching the rhetoric. Ursula von der Leyen has openly urged member states to use “enhanced cooperation” under the Treaties, where blockades from some member countries stall ambition. Mario Draghi, former Italian prime minister and author of a report on European competitiveness, has called this “pragmatic federalism”. Resorting to consensus will happen less and less.
This can already be observed informally. In Ukraine’s accession talks, for instance, Hungary has blocked the formal opening of all 33 negotiating chapters required to align Kyiv’s laws with the EU’s. The Commission has nonetheless pushed ahead where it can: bilateral screening was completed last September, and discussions have advanced on roughly two dozen chapters despite the political deadlock.
And Member States signal political backing
At the informal European Council retreat on Thursday (12 February), important Member States such as France, Germany and Italy backed the idea that certain reforms may need to proceed through smaller coalitions of willing states rather than through full unanimity.
This political backing suggests that what was once considered a taboo is increasingly viewed as a practical instrument to unlock much-needed reforms on competitiveness, capital markets, and regulatory integration, such as deepening the single market.
