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Global Europe and strategic sovereignty ] 157 STRATEGIC AUTONONY IN SECURITY AND DEFENCE — Zsolt Nagy — References to the need for a strengthening of the EU’s strategic autonomy have become recurring elements of practically all documents adopted by either the European Council, the Council, or the European Commission on security and defence matters today. Although the exact meaning of the concept remains largely undefined, and therefore controversial, these two words have mobilised a great deal of intellectual reflection and, more importantly, point to the heart of the question of what role Europe should play in its own security and defence. The security environment of Europe is becoming increasingly complex with unresolved and long-standing risks, as well as emerging new challenges, and even threats in both the eastern and southern flanks of the continent. At the same time, major geopolitical shifts can be witnessed in our post-Cold War world, with a weakening rules-based international order, the relative decline of the US, a rising and more assertive China, and an increasingly aggressive and unpredictable Russia. Europe cannot ignore these dynamics: it needs to redefine its place and role in this unfolding new world. The debate about European strategic autonomy has emerged in this context; while the COVID-19 pandemic has only reinforced it. The notion of strategic autonomy is rooted in French strategic thinking. The first appearance of the concept dates back to 1994, when France's White Paper on Defence referred to strategic autonomy as an objective to be guaranteed by the defence forces. This nationally oriented approach was gradually elevated to the European level, first in 1998, when France and the United Kingdom agreed upon deepening European-level defence cooperation. Through a carefully balanced compromise, the Franco-British Joint Declaration signed in Saint-Malo embraced the aspect of autonomy, without qualifying it as strategic, although: “the Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises”. It was in this spirit that the UK agreed to develop autonomous European capacities to execute crisis management operations, while France accepted that this should remain compatible with NATO policies. More than a decade later, in 2013, the European Commission’s communication on defence industry brought the concept back into the limelight by claiming that Europe must be able to assume its responsibilities for its own security and for international peace and stability in general. This necessitates a certain degree of strategic autonomy: to be a credible and reliable partner, Europe must be able to
