European Union activates its “anti-coercion instrument”<\/a> if the United States imposes tariffs in the standoff over Greenland.<\/p>\nThe \u201cAnti-Coercion Instrument\u201d (ACI) which President Macron has spoken of was approved by Brussels in 2023 in order to deter attempts by outside powers to force policy changes on the EU or member states.<\/p>\n
At the time the main threat was seen as coming from China, which had recently \u201cpunished\u201d Lithuania for its links with Taiwan by putting restrictions on bilateral trade.<\/p>\n
Today there would appear to be a clear-cut case of another outside power \u2013 the United States \u2013 using commercial muscle to change European policy on Greenland.<\/p>\n
In these circumstances, the \u201canti-coercion instrument\u201d is an added weapon in the EU trade arsenal.<\/p>\n
If there is agreement that coercion has been attempted by an outside power, and if negotiations to resolve the conflict fail, then the EU has enhanced powers to retaliate \u201cwithin international law\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to the EU, \u201cThe ACI permits import and export restrictions to be placed on goods and services, but also on intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdditionally, the ACI enables the imposition of various restrictions on access to the EU market, notably to public procurement, as well as the placement on the market of products under chemical and sanitary rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ACI has never yet been used. Last year, during the negotiations over tariffs between the US and the EU, there was talk of the EU invoking it but it never happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A weapon in the EU trade arsenal – what is the ‘Anti-Coercion Instrument’?published at 13:37 GMT 13:37 GMT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-376979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Analysis\"](\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/analysis.77b314ef10.svg\")
A weapon in the EU trade arsenal – what is the ‘Anti-Coercion Instrument’?published at 13:37 GMT<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/088292f4-662f-422c-9a18-45c000bc6829.jpg.webp.webp\")
Hugh Schofield![\"Emmanuel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3bdc2c16-5b28-47ea-b61a-08d3fd467954.jpg.webp.webp\")
Image source, EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n