"Strategic autonomy" is the EU's latest catchphrase, its label for the bloc's push to increase self-sufficiency and boost its own industry in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. [ Ссылка ] After the "America first" motto, and Beijing’s "Made in China 2025" strategy, it’s the old continent’s turn to turn its gaze inward.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg joined talks to boost defense and security. EU leaders have also been discussing the threat of cyberattacks and the rise of China. European Union leaders agreed on a new strategy aimed at boosting defense and security in the bloc on Friday.
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here has been a lot of discussion lately, and also some controversies, on the concept of strategic autonomy. It is time to clarify what exactly we mean with this concept and how it can help Europeans to take charge of themselves in an increasingly harsh world.
The debate on “European strategic autonomy” has recently given rise to quite a lot of controversies. Let’s welcome this debate because we need to clarify the issue, clear up ambiguities and make some concrete proposals on how we can move forward.
Some see in strategic autonomy an illusion that is best abandoned, especially after Joe Biden’s victory. Others see in it a political imperative to be pursued more than ever. In between, yet others suggest that we need to avoid old theological disputes and give practical content to these words. I agree with them.
When dealing with the issue I cannot resist the temptation of paraphrasing a great French author, Montesquieu, and his famous satirical text entitled How to be a Persian? "Oh! To be strategically autonomous, it should be a very extraordinary thing! How can we be strategically autonomous?” That is the question.
The slogan has caused a stir among EU heads of states and government, who after heated discussions in early October conceded that “strategic autonomy” is a “key objective” of the bloc, while “maintaining an open economy.”
What's that?
What strategic autonomy means in practice remains hazy at best — and its ambiguity allows governments across the bloc to project their hopes and fears into the term.
For the European Commission, strategic autonomy encompasses a host of initiatives, including more assertive trade defense instruments like a carbon border levy for emissions-intensive import and a mechanism to police recipients of foreign state subsidies. Another component is a push to increase independence of EU industry from single-country supplies of everything from active ingredients for drugs to raw materials for batteries.
"We are currently working on strengthening the economic resilience and we are looking at different options: on-shoring, near-shoring, stockpiling, diversifying, shortening supply chains," newly-minted EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said at his confirmation hearing this month. "This is the whole toolkit which we can explore." He confirmed that Brussels will present its new approach on trade in 2021.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has also promised to revamp the bloc’s industrial strategy and competition policy, which she said should “keep pace” with global developments. Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton is going through a risk-analysis exercise to find weak links in Europe’s supply chains and address them by increasing production on EU soil as well as diversifying suppliers.
But this inward-looking push is rather awkward in the European Union, the world’s most integrated trade bloc and a long-time champion of free trade and multilateralism. EU exports accounted for 15.4 percent of the bloc's economic output in 2019 — compared to 18 percent in China, and 12 percent in the U.S., according to World Bank data.
For now, much of the debate on strategic autonomy has been on semantics, marking clear political divides between countries that see this as a threat to Europe’s openness, and its proponents who see a chance to advance European industry and help foster "champions" able to compete on a global scale.
“There is a very strong tendency toward ever-growing protectionism,” said Tytti Tuppurainen, Finland’s minister for European Affairs. “It's the Zeitgeist that has been there for a longer time, but now there are also forces that seize the moment.”
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