Europe’s Strategic Autonomy, Defined: Beyond Macron, Beyond PR
Strategic Postures
A Geopol.uk Series on Sovereignty, Alignment & European Power
Foundational framing of EU sovereignty narrative
Strategic autonomy has become a recurring slogan in Brussels, Paris, and increasingly Berlin—but what does it actually mean? And why does its definition matter? As the EU confronts mounting geopolitical uncertainty, from Russian revanchism to U.S. electoral unpredictability, the idea of Europe acting independently in matters of defense, technology, and energy policy has moved from aspirational to imperative. Yet the term "strategic autonomy" remains vague—elastic enough to accommodate both maximalist visions of full sovereignty and minimalist notions of hedging.
Beyond Macron: A Contested Concept
French President Emmanuel Macron has long championed European strategic autonomy, casting it as a necessary corrective to overreliance on the United States. His rhetoric—especially in the wake of the AUKUS deal and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan—has fueled accusations of Gaullist nostalgia. But the idea predates Macron and is not uniquely French. Germany, while traditionally Atlanticist, has begun to quietly converge with Paris on the need for greater self-reliance, particularly in defense industrial terms.
Crucially, Central and Eastern European member states remain wary. For them, strategic autonomy often translates to diminished U.S. security guarantees. The result is a fault line within the EU, where some see autonomy as independence and others as abandonment.
Institutional Codification vs. Political Will
The EU's 2022 Strategic Compass formalized some aspects of strategic autonomy, proposing a rapid deployment capacity and greater defense R&D coordination. But institutional codification alone cannot substitute for political will. Autonomy requires redundancy—military capabilities, energy infrastructure, technological stacks—that do not currently exist at scale.
Moreover, autonomy must be distinguished from autarky. The EU’s dependencies—on U.S. ISR assets, Taiwanese semiconductors, and North African gas—are structural. True autonomy would mean mitigating these dependencies, not simply replacing them with European versions of the same.
Strategic Autonomy as a Policy Test
Strategic autonomy is best understood as a policy test rather than a single policy. It asks whether the EU can act in its own interest even when major allies diverge. This encompasses procurement reform, common threat assessments, intelligence-sharing protocols, and coordinated diplomatic tools. It also involves hard questions about what kind of power the EU wants to be—a regulatory superpower, a civilian geopolitical actor, or a military force in its own right.
Framing the Narrative
The term’s ambiguity is both weakness and strength. As a narrative, it allows for coalition-building and incrementalism. As a strategy, it risks dilution. The foundational challenge for the EU in 2025 is to clarify the ambition behind the phrase. Is strategic autonomy a vision for sovereignty, resilience, or merely symbolic posture?
As highlighted in Veilmark’s recent diagnostics on institutional narrative systems, strategic autonomy is not merely a defense policy—it is a narrative stack under construction. Member states diverge not only in material capability but in how they frame agency, threat, and time. Until this semantic and strategic architecture is aligned, autonomy remains less a roadmap than an aspirational placeholder.
This framing piece initiates Strategic Postures, a series on Geopol.uk examining Europe’s evolving definitions of autonomy in defense, trade, energy, and technological sovereignty. Future entries will dissect concrete initiatives such as PESCO coherence, DIANA funding, EDF strategy, and digital resilience.
