Strategic Autonomy

Layers of the definition

Strategic autonomy denotes a state's capacity to pursue its national interests and adopt its preferred foreign policy without depending heavily on other foreign states. The working definition used by the European Parliament is "the capacity of the EU to act autonomously, that is, without being dependent on other countries, in strategically important policy areas," a scope that can range from defence policy to the economy and includes the capacity to uphold democratic values. Outside Europe, India is described as defining the term as the capacity to pursue national interests independently in foreign relations, defence, technology and economic policy, to actively engage a range of major global actors and institutions, and to continuously develop comprehensive national power ensuring stability, security and growth.

History

The expression first appears in European Council conclusions in December 2013, which called for a European defence technological and industrial base that can "enhance its strategic autonomy and its ability to act with partners." One study dates the term's emergence to that 2013 use in reference to the defence industry and security and defence issues, and records that since 2016 officials have used it increasingly and its scope has widened to economic policy and new technologies. A European Parliament briefing divides the debate into 2013-2016, when the concept was mainly an approach to security and defence; 2017-2019, when it became a way to defend European interests in a hostile geopolitical environment marked by Brexit, the Trump presidency and China's growing assertiveness; 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shifted focus to mitigating economic dependence on foreign supply chains; and the period since 2021, when its scope widened to virtually all EU policy areas, including EU values. From 2021 the expression was paradoxically used less and often replaced by cognate concepts such as "open strategic autonomy," "strategic sovereignty," "capacity to act" and "resilience"; the briefing treats strategic autonomy and strategic sovereignty as equal and interchangeable terms. After Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, steps toward EU strategic autonomy were taken while the concept remained blurred by terminological variation. Institutionally it became part of the EU Global Strategy in 2016, with a European Defence Fund created in 2017; it became central to the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen, where figures such as Josep Borrell and Thierry Breton argued that Europe's soft power needed a harder power dimension. In 2025 von der Leyen unveiled the Readiness 2030 initiative to mobilise up to 800 billion euros for Europe's defence infrastructure.

Related instruments and stakes

The EU adopted concrete instruments to build autonomy: the European Defence Fund of 2017 to coordinate national defence research investment, Permanent Structured Cooperation of 2018 for structural military integration, and legislation such as the 2023 European Chips Act and the 2024 Critical Raw Materials Act to encourage domestic resource development and production. On the political side, after the 2020 US presidential election France's Emmanuel Macron advocated for European strategic autonomy, and in April 2023, after a state visit to China, he called for the EU to reduce dependence on the US so as to avoid being drawn into a US-China confrontation over Taiwan, saying Europe should become a "third superpower," focus on its own defence industries and reduce dependence on the extraterritoriality of the US dollar. EPRS frames "open strategic autonomy" alongside the green transition, noting that the EU seeks a circular economy, domestic mining and "Made in EU" products, but that greening the economy and strengthening autonomy do not automatically reinforce each other, with scenarios ranging from Green Autonomy to Polluting Dependence. In economic policy, autonomy is not conceptualised as independence or a lack of integration but as the capacity to manage economic interdependence, expressing the ambition of safeguarding sovereignty without resorting to protectionism.

Examples

EU flagship projects to reinforce autonomy include Gaia-X, a federated secure standard for data infrastructure; IRIS2, a planned multi-orbit satellite internet constellation to be deployed by the EU by 2027; and the European Payments Initiative, which allows European consumers and merchants to bypass US-based payment corporations such as Visa and Mastercard. India is described as exercising strategic autonomy through targeted "de-hyphenation" (engaging multiple states independently), modular partnerships (coalitions in specific sectors such as security, trade, climate and development financing rather than comprehensive alliances) and "multialignment" (simultaneous participation in diverse, sometimes rival multilateral forums). At the level of the European Council, the Versailles Declaration of 11 March 2022 operationalised the goal, aiming at greater EU strategic autonomy in defence, energy supply and the economy.

Distinctions and disputes

EU documents treat "strategic autonomy" and "strategic sovereignty" as synonyms, while in an economic context the usual term is "open strategic autonomy." In Indian usage the concept is distinguished from non-alignment: unlike non-alignment, which in its ideal form symbolised equidistance from power blocs and avoidance of entanglement, strategic autonomy is described as a dynamic strategy of selective, human-centric and interest-driven engagement. The concept's contours are not sharply agreed, however. EPRS notes that its scope remains blurred by the variation in terminology, and a European Parliament AFET workshop lists "European sovereignty," "strategic autonomy," "digital sovereignty," "technological sovereignty" and "open strategic autonomy" as distinct but overlapping concepts given life by a deteriorating international scene. As a security and defence concept, EU strategic autonomy is understood as the ability not to be overly reliant on the United States, to defend Europe and to act militarily for strategic purposes; the stated goal was not to act alone militarily and to characterise the EU as non-interventionist.