POLITICO News Financial Services - February 19, 2026 10:00 am CET By Gregorio Sorgi and Giovanna Faggionato - ‘No red lines’: Spain reveals EU supergroup’s plan to challenge US and China

 POLITICO

‘No red lines’: Spain reveals EU supergroup’s plan to challenge US and China

But smaller countries fear the club will sideline dissenting voices in pursuit of a two-speed Europe.

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The spark that triggered E6's emergence came during a ministerial breakfast in Brussels on a cold January morning, when Carlos Cuerpo's frustration over EU inaction boiled over. | Marias Chiofalo/Europa Press via Getty Images

February 19, 2026 10:00 am CET

By Gregorio Sorgi and Giovanna Faggionato

BRUSSELS — U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland were the “epiphany moment” for Europe’s six largest economies to club together and speed up financial market reform, Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo told POLITICO.

The new group, dubbed “E6” in Brussels, is an exclusive club among the EU’s six largest economies — France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland — designed to break political deadlocks that have hamstrung efforts to create a U.S.-style financial market over the last decade.

Without action, the six countries fear that Europe's economy will fail to keep pace with the U.S. and China, and be further squeezed in a geopolitical world that has become increasingly transactional.

The goal is to put “politically difficult discussions on the table to be able to unlock files that have been locked so far,” said Cuerpo, who has long campaigned to make EU bodies better at delivering concrete policy decisions. “Building those bridges can then be a good first step towards an overall solution.”

The club will also help the six countries coordinate ahead of G7 meetings with Canada, Japan, and the U.S. on strategic issues, such as securing access to critical rare materials, following China's threat to restrict exports.

The E6 club has only convened twice and is already aiming to present EU leaders with specific proposals at the next European Council summit in March.

Critics, such as Ireland and Portugal, fear the six-country club could trigger a two-speed Europe, in which the biggest nations will sideline smaller countries that disagree with E6's agenda — especially when it comes to creating a watchdog to supervise the bloc's biggest financiers.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has suggested that EU countries should break off into smaller groups and pursue financial integration through “enhanced cooperation,” if the so-called Savings and Investments Union doesn't progress by June.

To focus minds, von der Leyen will produce a roadmap that the E6 hopes to contribute toward, complete with a list of reforms and deadlines for leaders to discuss. The Commission's first significant policy will be a “28th regime,” an EU-wide legal framework due March 18 that'll offer companies certain uniform rules to operate easily across the bloc.

A supergroup is born

The spark that triggered E6's emergence came during a ministerial breakfast of coffee and croissants in Brussels on a cold January morning, when Cuerpo's frustration over EU inaction boiled over.

Trump had thrown the NATO alliance into disarray with his renewed demands to “own” Greenland, right after removing the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from power. None of these topics had made it onto the ministers' monthly Ecofin agenda, triggering an outburst from Cuerpo, who lamented the lack of political debate over Europe's relationship with the U.S.

His outburst couldn’t have come at a better time for the finance ministers of France and Germany. The two men, Roland Lescure and Lars Klingbeil, had met just 24 hours earlier to discuss how best to revive EU economic initiatives that had grown stagnant. Invitations for a virtual meeting among E6 countries arrived within a week.

Roland Lescure (right) and Lars Klingbeil met to discuss how best to revive EU economic initiatives that had grown stagnant. | Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images

“Lars and Roland pushed to convene all six of us and that’s how it got started,” Cuerpo said. 

Monday's discussion focused on strengthening supply chains to critical rare materials and how to quickly progress on deepening the bloc's financial markets. These included cutting red tape and introducing the so-called 28th regime.

The next E6 meeting on March 9 will home in on promoting investment in defense and how to promote the euro on the international stage.

Mixed reception

The reception from outside the exclusive group has been mixed.

Some believe the E6 could lead to meaningful change, while others fear their voices will be drowned out in the pursuit of swift progress. There's a third group that believes the six countries will struggle to find common ground at all.

Portugal's finance minister, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, urged the six countries to respect the EU’s treaties during the Eurogroup on Monday after Germany's Klingbeil briefed his peers on E6 discussions — a transparency pledge that failed to appease all skeptical ministers and their aides.

“EU supervision was the elephant in the room,” one diplomat who attended the Eurogroup said. “I'm surprised more people didn't speak up.”

Legally speaking, the E6 needs at least nine countries to pursue enhanced cooperation. Even then, the legal workaround is only possible once an initiative fails to muster enough support at EU level. Meanwhile, securing a qualified majority to push legislation through requires the backing of 15 countries that represent at least 65 percent of the total EU population. So, the E6 will need allies to advance its goals in any case.

To assuage concerns over E6, Cuerpo is encouraging outside countries to join other discussion forums, such as the “Competitiveness Lab,” an open format launched a year ago, to develop common initiatives among governments seeking to deepen their capital markets.

In the meantime, Cuerpo is urging skeptical countries to put their faith in something new, beyond Brussels' creaking legislative machine.

“There are no red lines in the discussions within this group,” Cuerpo said. “I think that should be for the benefit of everyone.”

Bjarke Smith-Meyer contributed to this report from Brussels