Trade and dependencies
For decades the EU was the world's largest trading power. China has overtaken it, and Europe increasingly depends on others to buy and to sell.
Between two giants
World trade has shifted its centre of gravity in two decades.
In 2002, the EU supplied 18.9% of world goods exports and China 6.5%. China has exported more than the EU since 2015, and by 2024 it accounted for 18.7% of the world total, against the EU's 14.7%. The United States is above all a big buyer: it takes in more than 16% of the world's imports.
China now exports more than the EU: its share of world trade has almost tripled since 2002
Each economy's share of world exports or imports of goods, in %
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The accounts sum it up. In 2024, China sold the world 916 billion euros more than it bought. The United States, the other way round, bought 1.19 trillion more than it sold. The EU, with a surplus of 133 billion, sits in between.
China sells to the world, the US buys, and the EU sits in between
Trade balance in goods (exports minus imports), in billions of euros
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Is Europe losing, or choosing?
Opening up to the world was a European choice. The price is depending on two partners who no longer get along.
In 2002, China supplied 7.8% of what the EU bought from outside the Union. In 2025, 22.6%. In machinery and transport equipment, which includes solar panels, batteries and electronics, it reaches 35.8%, after peaking at 40.6% in 2022.
More than one in five EU imports now comes from China; in machinery, more than one in three
Share of the EU's imports from outside the Union that comes from China and the US, in %
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Selling works the other way round. The United States buys 21% of what the EU exports outside the Union, almost three times as much as China (7.5%). Europe buys from one giant and sells to the other, which leaves it exposed to the tariffs of one and the competition of the other.
To sell, the EU depends on the US: its first customer, far ahead of China
Share of the EU's exports outside the Union that goes to the US and China, in %
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Europe from within
The single market is still every country's main partner. Dependencies, however, are spread very unevenly.
Of every ten euros EU countries export, six go to other EU countries, just as in 2004. Slovakia and Czechia sell almost 80% of their exports within the EU. At the other end, Ireland and Cyprus, home to large multinational subsidiaries, look much further afield. Spain sends 62% to the EU.
Europe's first customer is Europe: six in every ten euros exported stay in the EU
Share of each country's goods exports that goes to other EU countries, in %, 2004 and 2025
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Energy is the most visible dependency. The EU imports 57% of the energy it uses. Malta and Luxembourg import more than 90%; Spain, 69%. Only Estonia, thanks to its oil shale, comes close to self-sufficiency.
The EU imports more than half its energy. Only Estonia is almost self-sufficient
Energy import dependency: net imports as a share of available energy, in %
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Notes on this theme
Other themes
- AI and digitalThe EU is adopting artificial intelligence faster than ever, but almost all the technology it uses is designed elsewhere.
- Productivity and growthThe EU weighs as much in the world economy as the United States, but it produces less per hour and much less per person. The question is how much of that gap is lagging behind and how much is choice.
- Freedoms, well-being and climateEurope lives longer, pollutes less and protects freedoms more than the United States or China. But those advantages are not equal across its countries, and some are eroding.
- HealthThe EU spends far less on health than the US, and people live longer. Most of it is paid with public money, but each country differs in how many doctors it has and how much patients pay themselves.
- Money and paymentsThe euro area holds more cash relative to its economy than the US and China, but uses it less and less to pay. Cards are filling the gap, largely through non-European networks. The digital euro is the EU's bet to keep public money present in electronic payments.
- Housing and the cost of livingHousing has risen less in the euro area than in the US, and so have rents. Almost seven in ten Europeans live in a home they own, but those renting at market prices bear far higher costs, and the gaps between countries in cost and space are huge.
- EnergyThe EU uses less than half as much energy per person as the US, and China has now overtaken it. Its electricity relies far less on fossil fuels, but renewables cover only a quarter of all its energy, and industry pays considerably more for power than before the 2022 crisis.