While the document didn’t explicitly name China, it implicitly refered to Beijing by stressing that “some of the European Union’s (EU) main trading partners are breaking with this multilateral framework by imposing new trade barriers or contributing to systemic and structural industrial overcapacity.” The non-paper’s signatories, which include all of the EU’s biggest economies except Germany, urged the Commission to “contemplate more frequently the opportunity to open safeguard investigations in case of sector-wide trade disruptions.” The countries also called for the bloc to “be more proactive” in bringing breaches of trade rules before the World Trade Organization, and to allocate more human resources to its investigative units. In what appears to be a push to make trade enforcement more geopolitical, the five countries also called for adding “economic security” among the criteria that are assessed when deciding whether to open trade defense probes which can result in tariffs and other trade sanctions. “This approach would help preserve the Union’s remaining production capacities in strategic sectors and value chains, thereby protecting the Community’s industrial base,” they …