By Jorge Valero, Alberto Nardelli | Bloomberg News

The European Union is fighting to salvage industries under threat from American and Chinese competitors that have eroded the defense and economic systems upholding the continent for 70 years.

But —

A senior EU official warned that the bloc hasn’t yet grasped the problem’s full scale and that things seem to be getting worse. The EU has taken a piecemeal approach to protecting industries and has mostly concentrated on fixing past problems rather than crafting a forward-looking strategy, the official cautioned.

Europe needs a plan to avoid being “choked,” said Maria Demertzis, who leads the Economy, Strategy and Finance Center at the Brussels-based Conference Board think tank.

“We need to apply industrial policies, and we need to be unap

See Full Page