BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will ask top officials to support a major crackdown on subsidized Chinese imports, setting the stage for a battle with EU countries that still want to protect their ties to Beijing.

EU commissioners will meet on Friday to debate the future of the bloc’s relations with Beijing, as national governments led by France demand action to protect their industries in the face of hostile trading practices, while others like export powerhouse Germany counsel caution, fearful that they could lose export access to the vast Chinese market.

The orientation debate comes after officials were asked to draft plans for new powers to tackle low-cost goods flooding into the single market. The EU’s goods trade deficit with China widened to €360 billion last year from €312 billion in 2024. It expanded even more sharply in the first quarter of 2026, trade figures show.

Von der Leyen and her chief of staff Björn Seibert are advocating a much tougher approach toward Beijing, capitalizing on economic woes to win the argument, three officials with knowledge of the internal dynamics told POLITICO. They were granted anonymity to speak frankly.

“The debate of today should confirm the growing consensus in Europe about the necessity to act on the China Shock 2.0,” EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné told POLITICO.

“I think there is still a road to have a constructive dialogue with China, but we can’t let Europe be the victim of a predatory strategy that is destroying our industry. New tools, new measures, new political will are needed.”

After getting input from her commissioners, von der Leyen will meet with fellow leaders at a G7 summit in France on June 15 to discuss surplus Chinese production of goods that are swamping export markets and Beijing’s restrictions on the supply of critical raw materials. She will then seek the backing of presidents and prime ministers at a European Council that begins June 18 in Brussels.

According to two other officials, no written proposals will be drawn up from the discussions at that stage, instead giving the Commission time to refine its proposals further. Specific measures could be presented as soon as von der Leyen’s annual State of the Union address in September.

Von der Leyen would have wanted to get tougher on China far earlier, according to Tim Rühlig, a senior analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies who previously advised the Commission on relations with Beijing.

“She really has had to push this forward,” said Rühlig, adding that von der Leyen had seen “the economy-security nexus much earlier than other national politicians.”

Shifting sands

Germany has long been wary of taking any action that could spark retribution from China and harm its supply chains — Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said on a visit to Beijing this week that Berlin wanted to maintain a balance between supporting its export industries and protecting those at home facing a competitive threat from China.

“In Brussels, we are advocating for a balanced approach — one that combines effective protective instruments with continued openness to exports,” said Reiche, party ally of Christian Democrat Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Yet Berlin’s growing alarm at how imports are undercutting Germany’s once-dominant manufacturing industry is melting its resistance to a more robust stance.

“All actors — China, the Commission, everyone — understand the centrality of Germany in this. They are now feeling the heat, which creates at least some momentum,” explained Rühlig.

Not all capitals are moving in the same direction.

A rift has meanwhile opened among big EU member countries, with Spain — another EU economy that has embraced open trade and investment with China — distancing itself from a joint initiative led by France for more robust trade measures.

These would include safeguard investigations, which would have a broader preventive effect than countervailing duties imposed in anti-subsidy or anti-dumping cases which critics say have proven insufficient. The EU imposed tariffs of up to 35 percent on Chinese electric vehicles in 2024, only for manufacturers to ramp up exports of plug-in hybrids, which remain duty-free.

Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo on Thursday publicly disavowed the French-led position paper, saying it had only been discussed at technical but not political level. Still, he added, the EU “needs to step up” and “engage with the Chinese authorities.”

The question that Germany now faces is whether it is willing to join forces with France and other countries, and the Commission, “to defend the European home market from the flood of Chinese goods that is coming our way,” said Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.

“The Chinese market is now exceptionally closed to Germany and Europe,” Tordoir told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Week Ender podcast. That’s not only because of hefty tariffs but because it is “so heavily oversupplied that it’s very difficult for Western businesses that … have to make profits, to export profitably to China.”

New tools

Von der Leyen’s own officials aren’t all on the same page yet, either.

Séjourné is the most vocal public champion of tougher action but Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra also told POLITICO that he was a “hardliner” on the issue: “What I’m going to make part of the conversation [on Friday], I am worried about our significant dependencies on China, where we pretty much have the same track record as with Russia.”

But others, like Teresa Ribera, are positioning themselves as more nuanced on the debate and more open to working with China, arguing that cooperation serves Europe’s interests better than potential confrontation.

With the debate just getting started, the real question may be whether the EU can mobilize its trade defenses in time to fend off a one-sided flood of Chinese exports that — already shut out of the United States by President Donald Trump’s protectionist tariffs — are being redirected to the EU’s more open market.

“Our biggest challenge is not necessarily just the lack of tools. It’s a question of making them and putting them into use,” Grzegorz Stec, of the MERICS think tank, told the Brussels Playbook Week Ender podcast.

“It’s really important that we build credible European deterrence,” added Stec. “This is one of the issues on which we struggle vis-à-vis Beijing.”

Francesca Micheletti, Zie Weise, Camille Gijs, Jordyn Dahl, Sarah Wheaton, Gregorio Sorgi and Romanus Otte contributed reporting.