A geoeconomic Europe? ‘Strategic autonomy’ in policy thinking in Germany, France and the EU Commission

Over the past ten years, the global economy has seen a number of profound transformations. Economic stagnation, the continued rise of China and the weakening of the traditional leadership role of the US have given shape to a more ‘decentred’ and volatile global order. In this context, neo-mercantilist logics and new geoeconomic tensions have arisen which pit the US, China and Europe against each other on questions of technology infrastructure, energy markets and industrial innovation. In response to this, European leaders and policymakers are placing greater emphasis on the need for Europe to develop into an autonomous and more integrated regional block capable of projecting its power internationally and compete in an increasingly turbulent and disorganised global order. This is often seen to involve the development of particular forms of ‘geoeconomic statecraft’ (Christiansen, 2020) as well as the achievement of further supranational integration in the areas of industrial planning, defense and security cooperation as well as finance and capital markets. This paper interrogates the emerging shape of this new European orientation towards ‘strategic autonomy’ in the thinking of German, French and European officials. Through an in-depth document analysis of policy reports, speeches and white papers on strategic autonomy, we seek to reconstruct the shared assumptions but also the tensions and differing visions which characterise contemporary European thinking on strategic autonomy as well as on the institutional capabilities required to achieve it and the political constraints which militate against it.