Against the backdrop of vibrant cross-cultural exchange at Barcelona’s iconic La Merce festival, a deeper geopolitical shift is playing out across the European Union, as individual member states increasingly prioritize their own national strategic and economic interests over collective bloc unity. This week, Shanghai made history as the first Asian city of honor at the festival, where flamboyant traditional Chinese dragon dancers weaved through cheering crowds, acrobats performed mesmerizing rolling lantern acts that left audiences gasping, and centuries-old Catalan pipe music blended with traditional Chinese scores along Barcelona’s central boulevards. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Shanghai Vice Mayor Lu Shan noted that while Chinese and Catalan cultural traditions take distinct forms, they are bound together by a shared creative spirit.
This cultural exchange is just one visible marker of the warming relationship between Spain and China, a partnership that has put Madrid at odds with many of its European allies. Over the past four years, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has traveled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping four times, and has repeatedly called on the entire EU to strengthen diplomatic and economic ties with Beijing – a stance that has gained new traction in the two years since Donald Trump won re-election as U.S. president.
Many of Spain’s EU partners, who view Beijing as a strategic rival and potential geopolitical threat to the bloc, have pushed back hard against Madrid’s approach. Privately, critics question whether Spain’s open-door policy to Chinese businesses is allowing Beijing to gain undue economic influence within the EU’s single market. Germany and France, the bloc’s two largest economies, have already joined forces to adopt a harder line on China, pushing for new powers that would allow Brussels to block subsidized Chinese firms from accessing the EU market, to address a daily bilateral trade deficit that Brussels puts at nearly €1 billion. Other member states also point to China’s deep economic and technological ties to Russia, which they argue enable Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine – a charge Beijing denies.
Yet Spain is far from alone in shifting its alliances to meet what it sees as its own unique national needs. Growing uncertainty over U.S. commitment to European security, driven by Trump’s unpredictable trade and defense policies, has left many EU and NATO member states feeling exposed and unwilling to rely exclusively on Washington. This shift has opened rifts within the bloc, as countries pursue independent partnerships that often irritate or alienate fellow members.
For Spain, the economic logic of closer ties to China is clear. Data from Spain’s trade and investment agency ICEX shows Chinese investment in Spain is surging, with particular growth in electric vehicle manufacturing and large-scale battery gigafactory projects. Chinese investment in the country doubled over just the past year, following an announcement from major automaker Chery that it would open its first European production hub in Spain, reviving the defunct Spanish auto brand Ebro. Battery firms Hithium and CATL also have major gigafactory projects underway across the country. Victor Cortizo, an academic and legal expert specializing in Sino-Spanish relations, notes that with U.S. net investment in Spain falling by roughly €1 billion recently, China has filled the gap – and could become Beijing’s top investment destination in Europe now that pro-China former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is no longer in office.
Public opinion in Spain also backs this shift. A Pew Research Center poll published this summer found 54% of Spaniards hold a favorable view of China, compared to just 30% who view the U.S., Spain’s long-time traditional ally, positively. Cortizo explains this gap: China has lowered barriers to Spanish trade, while Trump’s tariffs and spillover effects from the U.S.’s conflict with Iran have made trade with America far costlier. Many Spaniards also resent Trump’s threats to impose economic sanctions on Spain if Sanchez refused to meet demands to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP and allow U.S. bases in Spain to be used for strikes on Iran, leaving many in the country seeing Beijing as a more reliable partner.
Critics, however, warn that Spain’s approach carries serious security and economic risks. They argue that Chinese firms are building local production facilities in Spain to evade tariffs on imported Chinese electric vehicles, threatening the integrity of the EU single market. More alarmingly, last year Spain’s interior ministry awarded Chinese tech giant Huawei a €12.3 million contract to store and manage sensitive judicial wiretap data, a decision that drew widespread condemnation across the EU. MEPs from multiple political blocs warned that allowing a high-risk vendor access to sensitive data could compromise the entire European intelligence sharing network, with Spain’s center-right opposition arguing the decision puts the whole bloc at risk. While Madrid denies any security risk, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith warns that moves like this erode collective European cohesion.
“When EU countries hedge against an unpredictable United States, they must be careful not to rush into partnerships that weaken the EU’s collective negotiating and security position,” Smith explained. “Partnerships with like-minded countries like Canada offer clear benefits, but deepening ties with China risks further undermining the EU’s ability to speak with one voice and creates new security vulnerabilities for the entire continent.”
Spain is not an outlier in this trend. In Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer border with Russia and joined NATO in 2022 after abandoning decades of neutrality, growing doubt over U.S. commitment to the alliance’s mutual defense clause has led the government to turn to Israel for advanced military hardware, including David’s Sling air defense systems and Spike anti-tank missiles. Finland renewed its major defense deal with Israel even during the height of the Gaza war, when the Finnish government and much of the EU had publicly raised serious concerns over Israeli military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. Minna Alander, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, notes that for Finns, national survival takes priority over ideological alignment: “Finns have a less sentimental mentality. There is a widespread understanding that we cannot always afford moral superiority when our security is on the line.”
Greece has followed a similar path. Facing long-running territorial disputes with NATO neighbor Turkey, and with the U.S. increasingly perceived as an uninterested mediator under the Trump administration, Athens signed a massive landmark defense deal, dubbed the “Achilles Shield”, with Israel in late August to acquire advanced drone, aircraft and missile defense technology. While Greece has a long history of public sympathy for the Palestinian cause, public pushback on the deal has been muted, as Greeks broadly agree that strengthening national security against Turkey takes priority over all other concerns. Like Finland, Greece wants to be seen as a cooperative member of the EU, but its independent alliance building adds to the growing fragmentation of bloc positions.
Nick Malkoutzis, co-founder of political analysis outlet MacroPolis, explains that this scramble by individual EU states to pursue their own security and economic interests makes it far harder for the bloc to unite around common positions – directly counter to the goals of Brussels and NATO leadership. While small groups of European countries have long collaborated on specific issues – from the E3 group of the UK, Germany and France focused on Iran diplomacy to the Nordic defense cooperation bloc and the former Visegrad Group – current shifts are unprecedented in their scope.
Today, both EU and NATO leaders warn that the continent faces greater geopolitical pressure than any time since the end of World War II. An aggressive Russia is positioned along the bloc’s eastern border, backed by China, while the U.S., long Europe’s closest security ally, is increasingly distracted by other global priorities. Brussels and Washington warn that growing fragmentation, splintering and the rise of “mini-lateralism” among European states only plays into the hands of Europe’s adversaries, who are closely watching for signs of fracture within the Western alliance.